A recent study is showing that Barbados does not have a proper grasp on its cancer statistics for the last decade.
This comes against what appears at first glance to be relatively low deaths caused by the disease.
Research by the Barbados National Registry for Chronic Non-Communicable Disease (BNR) revealed that prostate cancer, colon cancer and breast cancer account for 50 per cent of the deaths in Barbados annually.
Details of the research were disclosed by senior data abstractor at the BNR, Shelly-Ann Forde, during a virtual seminar yesterday. She also revealed that while breast cancer deaths around the world were declining, those in Barbados were rising.
“If we look at the top three cancers, which are prostate cancer, colon cancer and breast cancer, they tend to make up 50 per cent of the deaths annually. Even though there has been some fluctuation over the years, if you follow the trend in a linear fashion you can see that there has been an increase in the number of deaths. . . . ,” said Forde.