Today, at the 2nd International Scientific Conference in 2025 organized by Le Van Thinh Hospital, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Trung Kien - Principal of Can Tho University of Medicine and Pharmacy said that chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes or kidney disease are the leading causes of death and disability globally.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), these four groups of diseases account for 80% of all deaths from non-communicable diseases. Notably, 75% of these occur in middle- and low-income countries, including Vietnam.
The burden of disease can be seen from two aspects: health and economy. Cronic diseases not only reduce healthy life expectancy but also lead to huge medical costs. It is estimated that in the period of 2021-2025, the world will have to spend up to 7,000 billion USD to deal with these four groups of diseases.
In Vietnam, the situation is no less worrying. The report of the Ministry of Health shows that each year there are more than 592,000 deaths, of which 81.4% are caused by chronic diseases. Cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes and respiratory diseases alone account for 73.7% of the total disease burden. It can be said that half of the deaths in Vietnam today are caused by non-communicable chronic diseases, emphasized Professor Kien.
The rate of people with risk factors is also increasing rapidly. About 20% of the population has high blood pressure, 7% has diabetes, and 15% has dyslipidemia. As a result, medical costs have increased sharply, the cost of treating cardiovascular and diabetic patients (dibetes) has increased 5.5 times for emergency care, 3.5 times for hospitalization, putting great pressure on the health system and national finances.
From that reality, Professor Kien believes that scientific research is an important tool to control chronic diseases. The study helps understand the pathogenesis mechanism, detect risk factors and build early screening models. Early detection of the disease will help people have the opportunity to live healthy, reducing the burden on society, he said.
One of the outstanding research directions today is the study of genetics and biological chiics, the foundation for precision medicine, personalizing treatment. In addition, clinical studies on new drugs have also brought important advances. For example, the group of drugs that inhibit SGLT2 such as dapagliflozin has proven to reduce the risk of hospitalization for heart failure by 27% and 47% of kidney complications, thanks to clear scientific evidence.
We are entering an era of evidence-based medicine. Each diagnosis and treatment decision needs to be based on real research data, emphasized Prof. Dr. Nguyen Trung Kien.
He said that promoting scientific research in hospitals not only helps improve treatment quality, but also contributes to building effective health policies, aiming to reduce the burden of disease and improve public health.
