🇹🇼 Cancer in Taiwan

OnCo's copy of GLOBOCAN 2024 covers 187 countries and has no entry for Taiwan. In its place this page uses two national sources, both read in Chinese. The Health Promotion Administration's Cancer Registry Annual Report 2023, published in December 2025, counts 138,051 new invasive cancers diagnosed in 2023, an age-standardised rate of 331.29 per 100,000 on the 2000 world standard (298.99 on the 1976 standard that older IARC tables use), and 15,609 in situ cancers. The Ministry of Health and Welfare's cause-of-death statistics count 54,838 cancer deaths in 2025, 27.5% of all deaths, an age-standardised rate of 111.5 per 100,000 against 113.3 in 2024. Because both are counts of people, they can be compared with GLOBOCAN's figures for other countries only with care: GLOBOCAN's are modelled for a single year and the registry's include only people with Taiwanese nationality diagnosed in hospitals with 50 or more beds.

The 2023 report counts 71,244 cancers in men and 66,807 in women, with median ages at diagnosis of 67 and 63. The commonest by number were lung, bronchus and trachea (19,986), colon, rectum and anus (19,074), female breast (17,779), liver and intrahepatic bile ducts (10,449), prostate (9,985) and cancers of the mouth, oropharynx and hypopharynx (8,522). In men, cancers of the mouth and throat were fourth by rate (7,641 cases), at ten times the rate in women; in women, thyroid cancer was fourth (4,538). The cancers with the largest rises from 2022 were lung (up 2,004 to 19,986), colorectum (up 1,431) and prostate (up 923). The registry recorded 3,641 in situ breast cancers and 2,671 in situ cervical cancers, against 1,429 invasive cervical cancers. In the same year, according to the report, 53,126 people died of cancer, 25.84% of all deaths.

The 2023 report analyses cases filed by 199 hospitals with 50 or more beds up to 1 April 2025. Hospitals file quarterly and must report within 12 months of diagnosis. The registry received 178,638 reports of invasive cancer for 2023 and, after removing duplicates and applying IARC's rules for multiple primary cancers, counted 138,051 (22.72% fewer). From 2002 hospitals began a long form for six cancers, now 17 with pancreas added in 2022, which carries stage, first treatment, recurrence and site-specific factors such as EGFR and ALK in lung cancer and HER2 in breast cancer; since 2011 it also records smoking, betel quid chewing, alcohol and body mass index. Missing cases are chased against death records, the national insurance file of catastrophic illness certificates and the screening files, and completeness was estimated at 98% from 2012. In 2023, 0.67% of cases were known only from a death certificate and 95.32% were confirmed under the microscope. Article 11 of the Cancer Control Act requires cancer hospitals to report, and Article 17 fines a hospital NT$10,000 to NT$50,000 if it does not report by the deadline set.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare's analysis of 2025 deaths, published on 22 June 2026, counts 32,537 cancer deaths in men and 22,301 in women, a median age at death of 71, and 37,918 deaths at 65 or older, 32.4% more than in 2015, against 16,920 under 65, 9.6% fewer. Over the last ten years the age-standardised cancer death rate fell by 1.5% a year on average. The ten cancers with the highest death rates were lung (10,831 deaths), liver (7,601), colorectum (7,146), female breast (3,116), prostate (1,895), mouth (3,697), pancreas (3,204), stomach (2,225), oesophagus (1,981) and ovary (899). Among them, only lung, pancreatic and ovarian cancer had higher age-standardised death rates than in 2024. Among the cancers that can be screened for, cervical cancer deaths also rose on that measure. Mouth, oesophageal and ovarian cancer killed at a median age of 64, seven years younger than cancer as a whole.

Under the National Health Insurance Act, patients pay 20% of outpatient costs, or 30%, 40% and 50% at district hospitals, regional hospitals and medical centres if they go without a referral (Article 43), and 5% to 30% of inpatient costs depending on the ward and the length of stay (Article 47). Article 48 exempts people with a catastrophic illness (重大傷病) from both. Cancer needing active or long-term treatment is one such illness. Certificates for cancer were permanent when the scheme began; since 2002 they last five years, and in December 2013 the insurer explained that renewal depends on the treating doctor showing the cancer still needs active or long-term treatment, and that people whose certificate lapses still have follow-up tests covered with only the basic co-payment. At the end of 2013, 923,396 people held a certificate, 3.94% of the insured, and cancer accounted for 482,949 of the 986,287 certificates in force (49.0%); certificate holders used 28% of the insurance's medical spending. OnCo could not read a more recent count (see gaps).

The National Health Insurance Administration published the operating rules for the cancer medicine temporary payment fund (癌症新藥暫時性支付專款) on 25 February 2025. They cover cancer medicines or new indications with a Taiwanese licence and clear evidence of benefit that the global budget has not yet listed, and other cases the administration judges necessary. In April 2025 its drug-listing committee agreed to use the fund to widen pembrolizumab to first-line non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer, first-line MSI-high or mismatch-repair-deficient metastatic colorectal cancer and early triple-negative breast cancer, and atezolizumab in first-line lung cancer, for about 3,400 patients at an estimated NT$3.295 billion a year before the companies' repayments under their payment agreements. Selumetinib for children with plexiform neurofibromas and elranatamab and teclistamab for myeloma after four lines of treatment were also paid from it. In May 2025 the administration held a workshop with England's NICE on its Cancer Drugs Fund and managed access agreements, to refine Taiwan's fund. Since 2023 it has also paid temporarily for medicines given accelerated approval, and since January 2024 companies can apply for reimbursement while the TFDA is still reviewing the licence, with a target of listing within six months of the licence for qualifying medicines.

The administration reported in May 2026 that it had committed NT$300 million to sequencing panels for solid tumours and blood cancers since May 2024. In October 2025 it began a project to collect the results in the international FHIR standard, with the National Health Research Institutes presenting the data format and Linkou Chang Gung and Shin Kong hospitals among the hospitals testing the upload. Prior authorisation of cancer medicines can now also be filed as structured electronic records: by April 2026, 81 hospitals took part and 35 filed in FHIR format. Over the previous three months, liver cancer medicines had the highest share of prior-review requests filed in FHIR format (29%), then colorectal cancer medicines (24%). The registry's long form already records site-specific genetic results such as EGFR and ALK in lung cancer and RAS and BRAF in colorectal cancer, so test results and outcomes can in principle be linked.

Article 41 of the National Health Insurance Act sets up the joint drafting meeting (共同擬訂會議) for medicines, made up of representatives of the insurer, relevant agencies, experts, the insured, employers and healthcare providers, which may invite manufacturers and patient groups to express views; its minutes and members' declarations of interest must be published, and so must the result of any health technology assessment before the decision. Article 42 lets the insurer commission an assessment that weighs health, medical ethics, cost-effectiveness and the insurance's finances, and requires prior approval before use of medicines that are high-risk, expensive or open to misuse; the insurer's prior review of cancer medicines rests on this. In 2023 the insurer listed 31 new medicines, 8 of them for cancer, and widened 24, 11 of them for cancer, with spending of about NT$11.3 billion; it estimated the saving for a patient on a new cancer medicine at about NT$3.51 million a year. In 2024 it set up the Center for Health Policy and Technology Assessment, which it plans to make an independent public body.

The CDE's history of its HTA work says the insurer first considered formal assessment in 2000, a working group began in August 2007 and its Division of Health Technology Assessment opened on 1 April 2008; its reports are published in full. When the insurer receives a listing request, the CDE accepts the case within 2 days and replies within 42. The insurer's manual requires an assessment for a new medicine that treats a catastrophic illness or has a new mechanism of action and is forecast to cost more than NT$100 million in any of its first five years, and for a wider indication of such a medicine forecast to cost more than NT$50 million in any year. Companies applying as a breakthrough medicine must show clear clinical improvement over current best treatment, and the application form asks for the HTA reports of the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. In 2025 the CDE completed 58 assessments of breakthrough new medicines (38 of them new chemical entities), 145 of other new medicines and 12 of special materials, held 26 expert advisory meetings and 6 review meetings on reassessment plans for temporarily paid medicines. OnCo found no published cost-effectiveness threshold for Taiwan.

The TFDA's table of processing times, amended on 3 March 2026, gives 360 calendar days for a new chemical entity, including botanical new drugs, or a biological product: 30 days to classify and assign the file, 300 for filing and review meetings, advisory committee discussion and labelling review, and 30 to close. Orphan medicines also have 360 days; a new indication, route or combination with clinical data has 300. In July 2022 the Ministry reported 134 approvals of new drugs and new formulations in 2021 (125 imported, 9 made in Taiwan), and gave the case of a targeted cancer medicine approved under the rare serious disease scheme which made Taiwan, in its words, the first country in Asia to approve it after the US FDA. The TFDA's 2015 review gives a median of 171 days for its 15 priority reviews that year. The technical reviews are done by the Center for Drug Evaluation, which in 2025 completed 141 new drug applications, 38 of them antineoplastic or immunomodulating medicines; 29 qualified for at least one expedited route. The TFDA was formed on 1 January 2010 and became part of the Ministry of Health and Welfare on 23 July 2013.

The insurer's parallel submission route, open since January 2024, lets a company apply for reimbursement while the TFDA is reviewing the licence; it applies to medicines the TFDA has given priority review, accelerated approval, breakthrough or rare serious disease status, medicines not yet marketed anywhere, new medicines made in Taiwan within two years of their first approval abroad, new ingredients developed and made in Taiwan, and new technologies better and cheaper than those listed. The insurer's target for these is listing within six months of the licence. The CDE completed 19 eligibility checks for parallel submission in 2025. Neither the TFDA nor the insurer publishes a median time from licence to listing for cancer medicines that OnCo could find; industry surveys of drug lag were not used as a source.

The Health Promotion Administration's screening page lists the current offer: mammography for women aged 40 to 74 every two years; a cervical smear every three years for women aged 25 to 29 and once a year from 30 (at least every three years recommended); a faecal immunochemical test every two years from 45 to under 75, and from 40 to 44 for people whose parent, sibling or child had bowel cancer; an oral mucosal examination every two years for people aged 30 or over who chew betel quid (including former chewers) or smoke, and for indigenous people from 18 who chew betel quid; and low-dose CT. The four older screenings have run nationwide since 2010. The widening from 1 January 2025 added women aged 40 to 44 and 70 to 74 to mammography, people aged 45 to 49 to bowel screening, women aged 25 to 29 to cervical smears and a one-off HPV test at 35, 45 and 65, as part of the government's goal of cutting the age-standardised cancer death rate by a third by 2030. The Ministry's June 2026 release on causes of death adds a sixth programme from 2026: a once-in-a-lifetime stool antigen test for Helicobacter pylori, aimed at stomach cancer, for people aged 45 to 74. The HPA states that in 2023 the five screenings were done 4.872 million times and found about 11,000 cancers and 52,000 precancerous lesions. The HPA pays for them from its Tobacco Hazards Prevention and Health Protection Fund; Article 13 of the Cancer Control Act allows screening to be funded from the tobacco health and welfare surcharge.

The family-history group comes from TALENT, a Taiwanese study of 12,011 never-smokers aged 55 to 75 that found lung cancer in 2.6% at the first scan, 77.4% of it stage I, and more invasive cancer in people with a family history (2.7% against 1.6%); its authors warn that some of the early cancers found may be overdiagnosis. The 2025 widening lowered the family-history ages by five years. The smoking criterion follows the US Preventive Services Task Force: since 2025, 20 pack-years or more, for people still smoking or who quit less than 15 years ago. The Ministry's April 2025 release gives the stage at diagnosis for all lung cancers diagnosed in 2022: 6.2% stage 0, 32.3% stage 1, 3.7% stage 2, 10.4% stage 3 and 47.7% stage 4. Among the 1,957 cancers found by screening to the end of 2024, 1,621 (83%) were stage 0 or 1. The HPA notes that screening finds lung cancer early but does not prevent it, and that stopping smoking remains the main prevention.

The HPA's National Hepatitis and Liver Cancer Control Plan for 2026 to 2030 states that hepatitis B carriage in children under six fell from 10.5% before the programme to under 0.8%, and that liver cancer in children aged 6 to 14 fell from 0.54 to 0.20 per 100,000. About 80% of people with liver cancer in Taiwan have chronic hepatitis B or C, according to the registry; the share of new liver cancers with hepatitis B or C fell from 74.2% in 2011 to 70.7% in 2022. In 2023, 91% of babies had their first dose within 24 hours of birth and 98% completed three doses. Since February 2018 the insurance pays for antiviral medicines in late pregnancy for highly infectious mothers to cut transmission further, and the national plan to eliminate hepatitis C, set in 2018, aimed to reach the World Health Organization's 2030 target by 2025. Liver cancer remains the second cause of cancer death, with 7,601 deaths in 2025.

The HPA notes that IARC classed betel quid with tobacco as carcinogenic in 1987 and the areca nut itself in 2003, with Taiwanese scientists among those consulted. In the 2023 registry, cancers of the mouth, oropharynx and hypopharynx occurred in 7,641 men and 881 women, a tenfold difference in rate, at a median age of 60 in men against 67 for all cancers in men. The Ministry reported in 2017 that betel chewing among men aged 18 and over fell from 17.2% in 2007 to 8.4% in 2017; in 2020 the National Health Research Institutes and the HPA reported in Oral Oncology that it was below 7% by 2018 and that oral cancer incidence, after levelling off about two years after chewing began to fall, declined from 2014. The institutes call Taiwan's programme the only regular oral cancer screening run by a government. A study in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine (2026) of all 92,342 men diagnosed from 2004 to 2022 found that early-stage diagnoses rose to 2013 and then fell as screening uptake dropped, late-stage incidence was stable from 2009 and oral cancer mortality rose from 14.4 to 16.6 per 100,000 men, and concluded that cutting betel quid and cigarette use should come first. Betel control and oral screening moved to the Ministry's Department of Oral Health in 2023.

The act was promulgated on 21 May 2003 and last amended on 26 April 2023. Article 6 sets up the Central Cancer Control Council (中央癌症防治會報) under the Executive Yuan, convened by the Premier, meeting at least once a year. Article 8 sets up a cancer control policy committee of 18 to 24 unpaid members chaired by the health minister, at least half of them clinicians, researchers or civil society representatives, with no more than two thirds of one sex, meeting at least every quarter; it must consult patients and families. Article 10 requires the National Health Research Institutes to run a cancer research centre for treatments, diagnostics and clinical trials, and Article 11 requires hospitals to report new cases, stage, treatment, screening follow-up and deaths. Article 14 obliges screening providers to call back people with a positive result. The Taiwan Cooperative Oncology Group, set up in 1989 and now part of the institutes, helped build the national cancer care quality certification and core measures for 13 cancers.

Counted from ClinicalTrials.gov participation data in OnCo's graph on 4 November 2026: 812 trials list Taiwan among their countries, 531 of them phase 3, 136 phase 2, 106 phase 1/2 and 33 phase 2/3. ClinicalTrials.gov names AstraZeneca as lead sponsor of 124 and Merck Sharp & Dohme of 84; non-small cell lung cancer is the first-listed cancer for 174, then prostate (52), hormone receptor-positive breast (42), colorectal (34) and liver cancer (33). Taiwanese sites took part in liver cancer trials including IMbrave150, HIMALAYA, REFLECT and EMERALD-1, the EGFR lung cancer trials LUX-Lung 3, FLAURA, ADAURA and LAURA, and JUPITER-02 in nasopharyngeal cancer, which lists three countries. Of the 36 Taiwan-only trials, 17 are phase 1/2, and their sponsors include TaiRx, AP Biosciences, Anbogen, OBI Pharma, InnoPharmax and Ever Supreme; the National Health Research Institutes sponsor one in biliary tract cancer, and National Taiwan University Hospital is testing surgery of the primary tumour in oligometastatic EGFR-mutant lung cancer. The CDE reports that 83 of the 147 new trial protocols it reviewed in 2025 outside the abridged route for multinational multicentre trials (56%) were for cancer.

OpenAlex, counting works whose primary topic is oncology and counting a paper for every country among its authors' affiliations, gives Taiwan 874 works in 2021, 928 in 2022, 930 in 2023, 890 in 2024 and 912 in 2025, 4,534 in total, of which 3,225 are open access and 179 highly cited. OnCo's OpenAlex snapshot of 8 September 2026 also records 12,924 ClinicalTrials.gov studies of all conditions with a site in Taiwan. The national research base for cancer is the National Health Research Institutes' National Institute of Cancer Research in Zhunan and Tainan, which hosts the Taiwan Cooperative Oncology Group; it reports work on a map of genomic variants in Taiwanese breast cancer and a combination treatment for biliary tract cancer. The registry itself is a research resource: the HPA's process chart describes the annual report as made available for academic research.

Requests to www.nhi.gov.tw on 4 November 2026 returned HTTP 403 with a Cloudflare challenge. As a result OnCo could not read the current count of catastrophic illness certificates for cancer (the latest figure on this page is for the end of 2013, from a Ministry release), insurance spending on cancer and cancer medicines, the list of medicines paid from the temporary payment fund, the drug-listing committee's minutes, or the number of people insured. The NHIA's statements quoted on this page were read on mohw.gov.tw, where the Ministry republishes them with the NHIA named as the source.

The Cancer Registry Annual Report gives incidence, stage and first treatment but not survival; the HPA's stage-specific five-year lung cancer survival figures quoted in a 2025 release are rounded approximations and were not used. The 2023 screening dashboard gives counts of people screened and positive results but no coverage of the eligible population, and its follow-up rates could not be read reliably from the PDF layout. The TFDA's notice of 3 March 2026 was read from the Rootlaw law database's copy because OnCo did not find it on fda.gov.tw. China Medical University Hospital in Taichung has no record in OnCo because its own pages could not be read. The registry's 2024 report and population figures were not yet published.