The number of people who died from cancer in South Korea grew 3.2 percent last year from a year earlier, data showed Sunday.

A total of 72,046 people lost their lives to cancer last year, compared with 69,780 tallied a year earlier, according to the data by Statistics Korea. Cancer made up 28.2 percent of deaths reported last year.

Cancer claimed the lives of 45,209 men last year, up 3.1 percent from a year earlier. For women, the number of deaths came to 26,837, a 3.5 percent increase from 2009, the data showed.

Cancer has become a major cause of deaths in South Korea, with the number of people losing their lives to the disease on a sharp increase. Compared with 2000, cancer-linked deaths here have jumped 25 percent.

Lung cancer was blamed for the largest number of deaths last year at 15,623, followed by liver and stomach cancer with 11,205 and 10,032, respectively, the data showed. Colorectal cancer came next with the corresponding figure of 7,701.



(Yonhap News)