A new study has found that young women in the United States are more likely to have lung cancer than men. The researchers noted that the lung cancer rate has fallen in America, but that decline has only been seen among men.
Women Are At Risk
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, lung cancer is one of the deadliest forms of cancer in the United States. The CDC states that smoking attributes to 80 to 90 percent of lung cancer. This new study showed that over the past two decades, lung cancer has dropped among Americans between 35 and 54 years old. However, the incidence of this disease is higher among white and Hispanic women who were born in the 1960s.
Researchers from the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute came together to study nationwide population incidence of lung cancer according to the person's race, sex, age, the person's birth year, and the year a person was diagnosed. The information collected contained all cases of invasive lung cancer that was diagnosed in people between 30 and 54 years from 1995 to 2014.
The researchers also included 46 states and the District of Columbia.
The analysis of the study showed that lung cancer has declined among everyone. However, it was steeper in men. Researchers of the study are unsure of the reason behind this, as smoking habits are not considered to be the only factor. These findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
What Is The Difference?
The lead author of the study, Ahmedin Jemal PhD, stated that the 85 percent of lung cancer cases are related to smoking, but men still smoke more per day compared to women.
"While the prevalence of smoking among men and women has converged over the past several decades, smoking prevalence among women has still generally not exceeded that of men," he stated.
Jemal stated that his guess as to why this could be happening is because when women decide to quit smoking, they have a slower decrease in lung cancer than men do. Jemal continued that women and men tend to develop different forms of lung cancer.
Adenocarcinoma is more common in women, and the risk of this lung cancer drops at a slower rate among people who previously smoked. The researchers of the study stated that more research is needed to understand the role gender plays in lung cancer risk.
