More women are being diagnosed with lung cancer, while the number of diagnoses in men is falling, according to recent figures from the Belgian Cancer Registry (BCR) published on Tuesday in Het Laatste Nieuws.
The risk of lung cancer, one of the cancers with the lowest survival rates, has increased in women over the last few decades. This cancer remains a disease that mainly affects men, but the gap between the two groups is narrowing.
The idea that lung cancer is caused exclusively by smoking is now outdated, according to professor and lung surgeon Paul De Leyn from UZ Leuven. "We are seeing more and more people who have never smoked in their lives developing lung cancer. This now accounts for almost one in five patients, and increasingly these are women," he told Het Laatste Nieuws.
Other factors, such as air pollution and hormones may also play a role, although more concrete evidence is needed.
Doctors are calling for a clear plan to detect lung cancer earlier, as is the case for colon cancer. Over the past 20 years, the survival rate for lung cancer has increased by 13.5% in Belgium.
