Women face many struggles with health including many types of cancer. In the United Kingdom, projections say that more British women would die from lung cancer than breast cancer this year. The trend is due to chronic smoking in women especially in Britain and Poland.
According to Cancer Research UK, lung cancer is the second most common cancer in the United Kingdom for both men and women. Daily Mail reports that the projected lung cancer rate for women in Europe is to increase by 9% between 2009 and 2015. It is expected to reach 14.24 per 100,000 population while breast cancer death rate will decrease by 10.2% to 14.22 per 100,000 population.
Professor Carlo La Vecchia, lead researcher of the study from the University of Milan in Italy said, "UK and Polish women, particularly UK women, have long had much higher lung cancer rates than most other European countries." The study did not specifically tackle the exact cause of this prediction. However, smoking is probably the culprit since British and Polish women started smoking after the World War II. In other countries, they started to smoke long after the war.
The study was conducted by researchers from universities in Italy and Switzerland and was published in the journal, Annals of Oncology. The researchers placed inputs from historical data on types of cancers including stomach, pancreatic, lung, breast, colorectal, uterus, prostate, leukemia and total cancers from across Europe. The program has set a prediction by 2015 based on the trends in the past years.
The data covered more than three decades from 1970 to 2009. Furthermore, the estimates of the death rate by age and gender were measured for Europe and in each country like Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Britain and Spain.
The good news is cancer rates fell in Europe since the 1970s and now, it is most likely to continue decreasing but it does not include specific types of cancers that affect either men or women. For women, breast cancer rates are expected to fall but lung cancer incidences are expected increase this year.