Lung cancer is set to overcome disease of the breast as a killer of women in Europe within just two years, experts warned today.
Increased smoking rates among women lie behind the surge in the disease – which is one of the hardest to treat forms of cancer.
By the year 2015, lung cancer is expected to become the main cause of cancer deaths among women in the European Union, the researchers say.
It will overtake breast cancer – the current top cause, say Professor Carlo La Vecchia of the University of Milan, Italy, and colleagues in the journal Annals of Oncology today (13 February).
This year, just over 1.3 million people will die from cancer (737,747 men and 576,489 women) in EU, say the team. They explain that the numbers have increased since mortality figures were measured in 2009, but the rate per head has fallen – by 6% for men and 4% for women.
Nevertheless, women in all countries have experienced a rise in lung cancer deaths and a fall in breast cancer deaths. The team say that in 2013 there are likely to be 88,886 deaths, or 14.6 per 100,000 women, from breast cancer and 82,640 deaths, or 14 per 100,000 women, from lung cancer.
Overall in the EU, lung cancer deaths among women have risen by 7% since 2009, and have already overtaken breast cancer deaths in the UK and Poland.
"If these opposite trends in breast and lung cancer rates continue, then in 2015 lung cancer is going to become the first cause of cancer mortality in Europe," said Professor La Vecchia.
"This predicted rise of female lung cancer in the UK may reflect the increased prevalence of young women starting smoking in the late 1960s and 1970s, possibly due to changing socio-cultural attitudes at that time. However, fewer young women nowadays in the UK and elsewhere in Europe are smoking and, therefore, deaths from lung cancer may start to level off after 2020 at around 15 per 100,000 women."
Malvezzi, M. et al. European cancer mortality predictions for the year 2013. Annals of Oncology 13 February 2013 doi:10.1093/annonc/mdt010
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