"Croatia must have an implementable national plan for the fight against malignant diseases with an emphasis to be given on malignant diseases with highest incidence and possible prevention," Eljuga said at the news conference organised in Zagreb on Saturday to mark World Cancer Day.
The head of the cancer registry department within the Croatian Public Health Institute (HZJZ), Mario Sekerija said that in 2014, as many as 21,434 new patients had been diagnosed with malignant diseases. Of them 11,389 were men and 10,045 women.
The cancers with the highest incidence among the male population are lung cancer (for instance, 2128 new cases were diagnosed in 2014), colon and rectum cancers (1884 new diagnoses) and prostate cancer (1708).
In the cohort of female patients, breast cancer ranked first (2,644 new cases inn 2014), colon cancer followed (1243) and lung cancer (787).
In 2015, as many as 14,012 Croatians died of cancer, and of them 8,030 were men and 5,982 women.
Sekerija warns that recent data of the World Health Organisation on age-standardised cancer mortality rate in 2016 put Croatia on the second place in Europe, as this rate was 208.3 per 100,000 inhabitants.
World Cancer Day, observed on 4 February, aims to save millions of preventable deaths each year by raising awareness and education about the disease, pressing governments and individuals across the world to take action.
According to the World Cancer Day web site, "currently, 8.2 million people die from cancer worldwide every year, out of which, 4 million people die prematurely (aged 30 to 69 years)."