Medicine: Cancer in Russia

In Soviet Russia, as in the U.S., cancer stands near the head of the list of killers.* Some 70,000 Soviet citizens die each year of gastric cancer alone (in the U.S.: 80,000). By Mayo Clinic standards, the Russians concede that Russian cancer treatment is backward: Russian doctors are less skillful in diagnosis, have three times as many deaths after operation (23%) and less than half as many five-year "cures" (no recurrence) of gastric cancer (12-14%). But the U.S.S.R. is pushing cancer research in twelve cancer institutes and in many hospitals, has made cancer-fighting...

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