Lung Cancer Approaching Breast Cancer As Leading Cause Of Female Cancer Deaths In Europe, Study Reveals

Lung cancer has already surpassed breast cancer in the amount of deaths it has caused among women in the UK and Poland, according to the Annals of Oncology. But new research shows that the disease is closing in on breast cancer as the leading cause of death among European women.

This increase has been related to the amount of women who began smoking in the 1960s and 1970s, according to experts.

But with fewer European women choosing to smoke, the values relating to lung cancer deaths are expected to rise for a few years and then decline.

About 82,640 European women will die from lung cancer in 2013, while 88,886 are expected to die as a result of breast cancer.

Lung cancer is expected to overtake breast cancer in the cause of women deaths by 2015, according to experts.

The research involved analyzing cancer rates in Europe in general, including 27 member states (as of 2007) and six countries-France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the UK.

Stomach, intestine, pancreas, lung, prostate, breast, uterus and cervical cancer were looked at separately as well. The different types of leukemia were also part of the study.

The data showed that while more people are developing cancer because they are living longer, fewer people are dying as a result of it.

And although the total amount of cancer deaths were shown to decrease, lung cancer death rates still increased for women in all European countries.

Pancreatic cancer also showed no signs of decreasing the amount of deaths in both men and women mostly because there are little treatments that have proved effective for this type of disease.

"This is working. It is the single major cancer that does not show any signs of declining in the future, despite fewer people smoking," said Carlo LaVecchia-professor at the University of Milan.

"Smoking and diabetes account for about third of cases. But we do not know what causes most of the rest," he said. "But for lung cancer, we expect death rates to start to go down in around 2020 or 2025 now that the new generation of women are smoking less."

(SOURCE)