Expanding access to care for cancer patients

ON World Cancer Day (Feb 4), I reflected on a difficult truth: we have made significant advances in cancer treatment over the past decade but for too many families, a diagnosis still evokes fear – not only of the disease itself but of whether care is financially within reach and what that cost means for life beyond treatment.

Nearly half of the world’s cancer cases occur in Asia, yet access to comprehensive cancer care remains uneven. While high‑income countries are able to provide comprehensive treatment in more than 90% of cases, access drops to below 15% in many other parts of the world, a substantial proportion of which is in Asia.