Efforts to Increase Availability and Uptake of Screening for Common Types of Cancer

Mr Vikram Nair asked the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health given the rising incidence of cancer detection in Singapore, whether there are plans to increase the availability and uptake of screening for common types of cancer in Singapore, such as lung, liver and prostate cancer.

Mr Speaker, uptake of cancer screening is a matter of health habits, which take time to evolve. Under Healthier SG, regular screening for common cancers, such as breast, cervical and colorectal cancer, is recommended and heavily subsidised, and we hope it will shape positive changes to health-seeking habits over time.

As for screening for lung and liver cancer, it is only recommended for high-risk individuals. As such cancers are less common in the general population and there are limitations in the accuracy of screening tests, general population screening has lower yield compared to more targeted screening and can lead to many false positive results, requiring further investigations and causing unnecessary anxiety.

In addition, to address the burden of disease of cancer, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has been promoting healthier lifestyles, for example, not smoking, limiting alcohol consumption, healthy diets and physical activity, all of which are modifiable risk factors for cancer.

I thank the Minister of State. I think cancer screening under Healthier SG is an excellent programme and the earlier you detect, the better. I had recommended a few specific types of cancer in my question. To follow-up, the first question I have is, for those who are at higher risk, will their screenings be subsidised by the Government? Second, what is the view on multi-cancers screening tests?

I thank the Member for the question. Mr Speaker, indeed, as a matter of principle, we do want to encourage screening, but when we do so for the general population, we make recommendations and these are highly subsidised. When we do this, we actually make reference to the recommendations by the Screening Test Review Committee. We take deference from that. Because this does mean that we do have to allocate resources and funding to it. We do this for the general population level. For individuals, it is something that we will need to look at and assess, because the prevalence is different and the clinical effectiveness of the tests are different. What we recommend is for patients to have that good relationship with their doctors so that they can individually recommend it accordingly.

To make a scheme out of this is something we need to assess because it will require some separate resourcing.