ABSTRACT
The incidence rates of cancer also show decrease in men during the last 5 years, while the rates show stability for women. However, mortality rates that are much more critical than incidence rates have declined by 1.8% and 1.5% per year in men and women, respectively. Overall, cancer deaths have decreased by 20% from their peak in 1991 and the decrease is very signicant for all four major cancer types including prostate, breast, lung, and colorectal cancer [13]. By investigating other important classes of diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, it can also be observed that mortality has declined by 32.7%. The overall rate of deaths in 2009 was 236.1 per 100,000. This still has huge cost implication to the health authority. It has been estimated that the cost of all cancer and
benign neoplasms was reported to be $228 billion ($93 billion in direct costs, $19 billion in morbidity indirect costs, and $116 billion in mortality indirect costs), whereas CVD costs more than any other disease groups in the United States [14].
