National cancer control programs and setting priorities.

Although considerable resources are being allocated globally to cancer research, efforts to implement these findings efficiently are lagging behind. Enough is known about the cause of common tumors such as lung, oral, and liver cancer to allow active measures to be taken for their prevention. Effective early detection programs have been developed for cervical, breast, and oral cancer, and treatment methods exist whereby at least one-third of all cancer patients can be cured if their disease is detected early. Unfortunately, however, most cancer activities currently in place were developed haphazardly and lack overall coordination. National cancer control efforts can be more effectively planned and implemented if they follow a systematic stepwise approach of assessing the current situation, setting health objectives, evaluating the possible strategies, and setting priorities using quantitative assessments. Cancer affects both developed and developing countries of the world, and well planned national efforts emphasizing prevention and early detection can significantly reduce the cancer problem.

Growth charts based on the measurements of Malay pre-school children.

No abstract available.

Nutritional assessment by comparative growth achievement in Malay children below school age.

Measurements of child growth have become the most accepted means of assessing the protein-calorie nutritional status of economically developing populations. International reference standards have been suggested for a number of body measurements, but there has been little evaluation of their applicability in South-East Asia.In order to delineate the present range of nutritional standards in West Malaysia, and to aid in the development of guidelines for further nutritional work in this region, anthropometric tests were made on 3 groups of children below school age belonging to the Malay ethnic group and living under diverse conditions. Children of Malaysian Army personnel differed significantly in most measurements from rural village children in Trengganu and children from a small urban elite in Kuala Lumpur. Measurements for the latter group approximated to internationally used standards of height and weight. Parental height data suggest that these differences are not primarily genetic. Anaemia, malaria, and ascariasis were common among the Trengganu children.Weight and height emerge as the measurements that are most sensitive in differentiating between the groups; arm circumferences and skinfold measurements are also useful because they are relatively independent of age. Measurement of chest and head circumferences and of crown-rump lengths appeared to be of little value.