Lung Cancer Death Rate Falls for Women

March 31, 2011 -- Lung cancer death rates among women in the U.S. are declining for the first time in 40 years, a study shows.

The study also shows the overall cancer death rate continues a decline that began in the early 1990s.

The cancer death rate is the best indicator of progress against the disease. It fell by about 1.6% a year between 2001 and 2007. The rate fell by about 1% annually between 1993 and 2001.

For all types of cancer, cancer incidence declined by about 1% a year between 1999 and 2007. That’s the last year for which figures are available.

The annual report examining cancer incidence and death trends in the U.S. is a joint effort by the CDC, the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries.

Most Common Cancers

The overall cancer death rate fell for all four of the most common cancers: breast, colorectal, lung and prostate, American Cancer Society vice president for surveillance research Ahmedin Jemal, PhD, tells WebMD.

“We are definitely making progress due to a combination of better prevention, early detection, and treatment,” Jemal says. “But there is still much that we can do to improve this picture. We know that tobacco-control programs, including excise taxes, public smoking bans, and anti-tobacco campaigns, save lives.”

Even though smoking-related cancers are falling, 45 million Americans still smoke. It’s estimated that about a third of cancers are tobacco related.

Lung Cancer: Men vs. Women

More than a decade after the lung cancer death rate among men began to decline, significant decreases in lung cancer incidence and deaths are finally being seen in women.

Between 2003 and 2007, the lung cancer death rate among women fell by almost 1%, compared to a 6% annual increase from 1975 to 1982 and a 1.7% annual increase from 1990 to 1995.

Cigarette smoking peaked among men who were born in the early 1920s.

But women started smoking in large numbers later than men, with rates peaking among those born in the latter half of the 1930s.

Smoking rates also began to decline among women later than men. This is explains why lung cancer death rates continued to rise among women after they began falling in men.

Jemal says lung cancer rates among women in the U.S. can be expected to continue to decline for at least the next two decades as older smokers die and are replaced by women who have never smoked.

Cancer Rates: Racial Gap

African-Americans continue to have the highest cancer death rates overall, but they also saw the largest declines in the overall cancer death rate between 1998 and 2007.

Again, this is largely due to declines in cancers related to smoking, Jemal says.