Azernews.Az

The cancer treatment costs $804 million (based on official rate of 24,874 rials per each USD) for Iran each year, head of the National Congress on Comprehensive Cancer Control Program Abbas Pour Nesari said, Iranian Mehr news agency reported on February 7.

Nesari said $804 million is for the treatment of cancer, while indirect costs reach to $2.41 billion, annually.

Cancer is the third health problem in Iran, he said, adding that cancer statistics in Iran is lower than global cancer cases statistics.

Iranian media outlets claim that cancer is the third top reason for deaths in Iran, as every day about 105 people in the country die of cancer.

Some 41,000 people died in Iran due to cancer during the last Iranian calendar year (ended on March 21, 2013), and annually about 85,000 people catch cancer in the country, according to the head of Cancer Research Center in Iran, Mohammad Ismayil Akbari.

Official statistics in Iran say there are about 63,000 cases of cancer revealed in the country annually.

However, according to the Iranian media, the real number of cancer patients is 90,000-95,000, with over 50,000-55,000 fatalities.

In 2012, Dr. Parviz Daryaei in Iran said that breast cancer is the third leading cause of death among Iranian women and 25,000 to 30,000 new cases are reported every year, noting at the time that only colon and rectal cancers kill more women.