Lung cancer to overtake breast cancer

LUNG cancer will soon kill more females than breast cancer as women lag behind men in getting the anti-smoking message, according to the latest snapshot on Australian cancer rates.

Today's report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reveals that women who took up smoking in the 1970s and 1980s are now paying the price, as lung cancer outstrips breast cancer as a cause of death for the first time.

The report, Cancer In Australia: An Overview 2008, predicts that lung cancer rates in women are expected to grow by 0.4 per cent a year until 2010 but will fall by 1.1 per cent for men.

"It's tragic because there is not a lot you can do to prevent breast cancer but there is no reason for having so many people diagnosed with lung cancer when it stems from smoking," the chief executive of the Cancer Council of Australia, Ian Olver, said yesterday.

He called for a price rise on cigarettes and continued graphic advertising campaigns outlining the broad range of smoking's side effects, such as cardiovascular and gum disease.

"One in five people are smokers, so the advertising campaigns are graphic, but they need to remain as intense as they are now to make sure people get the message," he said.

"The Government needs to step up its efforts in reducing smoking-related deaths, and that really means price control and social marketing or advertising campaigns."

More than 100,000 new cases of cancer were diagnosed in 2005, and that number is expected to grow by more than 3000 extra cases each year to 2010, as the population ages.

The most common cancer is still prostate, with 16,349 new cases diagnosed, followed by colorectal (7181), melanoma (6044), lung (5738) and lymphoma (2373).

Testicular cancer had the highest survival rate, with 97 per cent of sufferers still alive five years after diagnosis, followed by thyroid cancer (93 per cent) and skin cancer (92 per cent). Pancreatic cancer had the lowest survival rate, with 4.6 per cent of sufferers alive five years after diagnosis.