SINGAPORE: Women in Asia are likely to face increased risks of acquiring breast and cervical cancers in the region, where screening and treatment remain too expensive for most, cancer specialists said on Sunday.

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer attacking women in Asia, followed by cervical cancer. Both can greatly be reduced by screening -- such as mammograms and pap smears that are routine in many Western countries -- and a new vaccine is proving to be highly effective in preventing cervical cancer.

But most of these options are too expensive for many Asians.

"You have to tailor the screening programme with what you can afford," said Dr Donald Max Parkin, a research fellow at the University of Oxford's Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit, who spoke at a two-day conference in Singapore. "We can't have annual pap smears, it's too expensive. You need a much cheaper and simpler programme."

He said self-examination could be promoted to help detect breast cancer, while pap smears could be given perhaps every five years, instead of annually. There also are cheaper, easier tests available that can help detect the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, or HPV, the main cause of cervical cancer.

About 385,000 cases of breast cancer occur each year in Asia, and about 266,000 cases of cervical cancer. As the population continues to age and increase, and as more Asians adopt Western lifestyles, those numbers are expected to climb sharply.