A study undertaken by researchers from the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya and recently published in the Archivos de Bronconeumología journal demonstrates a divergent trend in mortality cased by lung cancer by gender between 1980 and 2013 in Spain. The study also warns of the increase in mortality from lung cancer in women, particularly among those aged 55 to 64.
Despite the fact that mortality rates for lung cancer is still quite disparate between the sexes, being higher among men (22.455 cases among men and 5.404 cases among women), the trend among men is decreasing, whereas for women it is increasing. While among men it increased between 1980 and 1991 and significantly dropped between 2001 and 2013, among women the rates have increased from 1989 onwards, with a more pronounced increase observed from 1997 to the end of the study in 2013.
According to Dr Jose M Martínez-Sánchez, the study’s main researcher: “The increase in mortality cased by lung cancer among women can be explained by the smoking epidemic in Spain, because around 40 years have passed since the prevalence of tobacco consumption among women started to emerge at the end of the seventies and this did not stop increasing until 1995. For that reason, in Spain, since 2001 the percentage of deaths attributed to tobacco has been decreasing in men and increasing in women. The authors recommend that public health policies focus on encouraging a reduction in the consumption of tobacco among female smokers, especially among those who started smoking in the seventies, in order to stop the increase in mortality due to lung cancer.
