The Lung Cancer Epidemic

Among men in every one of 15 countries that keep the best medical records, the death rate from cancer of the lung increased relentlessly in the four years ending with 1952 (the last for which full figures are available), reported the World Health Organization.

The 15 countries, with 1952 death rates per 100,000 from lung cancer for men, and the percentage increase since 1949:

P: England and Wales, 61.4, up 31%

P: Denmark, 24.8, up 49%

P: Scotland, 56.3, up 36%

P: Finland, 38.7, up 30%

P: France, 28.2, up 30%

P: Ireland, 22.2, up 47%

P: Italy, 16.4, up 45%

P: Norway, 11.9, up 32%

P: Netherlands, 30.3, up 24%

P: Switzerland, 33.5, up 28%

P: Canada, 19, up 16%

P: Japan, 4.9, up 68%

P: Australia, 20.8, up 25%

P: New Zealand, 31.5, up 46%

P: United States, 26.1, up 21%

Among women, there were fractional bobbles in the rates from 1949 to 1952, and the overall rates for cancer of the lung (including trachea and bronchi) were markedly lower than in men. But generally the rate of respiratory cancer among women also trended upward.

Spanish-born Dr. Marcelino Pascua, WHO's top statistician, had hoped that his report would point a statistical reason for the increase. Other authorities would have been glad to see the question of cancer and cigarette smoking raised to the level of an international debate. But in all Dr. Pascua's mountains of statistics there simply were not enough facts to prove anything positive, because various countries have such widely differing standards of diagnosis and reporting.

The best he could do was to conclude that the increase in lung cancer must be real, and not merely the result of better diagnosis, because, for instance, there is no reason why doctors should diagnose it better in men than in women. And because cancer in other parts of the chest cavity shows a negligible rise in men of the age group now most susceptible to lung cancer, Dr. Pascua concludes that the greater number of aging men cannot be much of a factor. On one point nobody could argue: the increase in lung-cancer deaths was heavily concentrated in the 45-plus sge group.

Because there are (and have been for many years) great differences in smoking practices among the several countries, researchers have a hard time relating Dr. Pascua's figures directly to the cigarette habit. Item: the U.S., with many of the heaviest cigarette smokers, had the eighth highest attack rate but the second lowest rate of increase. (Possible reason: the U.S. may have passed its period of sharpest increase before the 1948-52 period.) Says Copenhagen's Dr. Johannes Clemmesen, noting that Denmark's four-year increase in lung cancer among males was 49%: "The higher a country's cigarette consumption was 20 years ago, the higher is the lung cancer mortality now. These 20 years seem necessary."

Some scientists in the U.S. and Britain suspect other causes in addition to cigarette smoking, e.g., diesel oil combustion fumes, auto exhaust gases, industrial pollution of the atmosphere. But those who lay the blame on cigarettes have established an imposing presumptive case. The WHO statistics do nothing either to strengthen or weaken it. What they do prove is that the world has a new and rising epidemic on its hands.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.