Are Women More Susceptible to Lung Cancer?

Extract

For most of the past 100 years, lung cancer has generally been thought of as a disease primarily affecting men. In the past several decades, however, the incidence of lung cancer has risen among women in the United States and most other parts of the world. While incidence is still higher among men than among women, the gap has narrowed and lung cancer has become the leading cause of cancer death among American women (1). The rise in rates of lung cancer among females has paralleled the increase in the prevalence of cigarette smoking. Just as in men, the majority (85%–90%) of lung cancers among women are considered to be caused by smoking (2).

The early epidemiologic studies that established cigarette smoking as the major cause of lung cancer almost exclusively involved men (3). When relative risks of lung cancer among female smokers first began to be reported, they tended to be lower than those for men, a finding not unexpected because of women's lower average levels of cigarette exposure from later age at starting, shorter duration of smoking, and fewer cigarettes smoked per day.