THURSDAY, Sept. 15 (HealthDay News) -- The rate of new lung
cancer cases among American women is finally beginning to decline,
much as it has for men in for years, a new U.S. government report
shows.
New cases of lung malignancies fell by 2.2 percent per year on
average for women between 2006 and 2008, after rising an average of
0.5 percent between 1999 and 2006, according to the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention.
Men's lung cancer incidence continued its long, slow decline,
the agency added, but the pace of that decline has sped up in
recent years. New cases fell by an average of 1.4 percent per year
between 1999 and 2006 but that accelerated to a drop of nearly 3
percent per year by 2006-2008, the CDC said.
Between 1999 and 2008, declines in new lung cancer cases were
seen among men in 35 states, while the rate remained stable in nine
states. For women, six states -- California, Florida, Nevada,
Oregon, Texas and Washington -- saw declines in lung cancer
incidence during the same time period. Lung cancer rates for women
remained stable in 24 states and they increased slightly in 14
states, the CDC team found.
While the trends are heartening, more needs to be done to stop
the nation's number one cancer killer, said CDC Director Dr. Thomas
R. Freiden. "Although lung cancer among men and women has decreased
over the past few years, too many people continue to get sick and
die from lung cancers, most of which are caused by smoking," he
said in an agency news release. "The more we invest in proven
tobacco control efforts, the fewer people will die from lung
cancer."
Declines in lung cancer rates seemed closely tied to the fading
popularity of lighting up. The report's authors note that lung
cancers fell fastest in the West, where smoking among both men and
women is lowest.
According to the reports' authors, certain moves by states
seemed to result in steeper declines in lung cancer cases. These
included boosting tobacco prices, enforcing 100 percent smoke-free
policies and making quit-smoking resources accessible for people
motivated to quit.
The findings are published in the Sept. 16 issue of the CDC's
journal
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
More information
There's help on quitting smoking at
Smokefree.gov.