Lung Cancer Spikes Cancer Statistics

Researchers say lung cancer due to smoking is solely responsible for figures that show an increase in cancer for the past 50 years.

Two studies show cancer death rates are steadily dropping, but lung cancer has overshadowed advances made in the cancer field. Brad Rodu, M.D., from University of Alabama, says, When lung cancer is excluded, mortality from all other forms of cancer combined declined continuously from 1950 to 1998, dropping 25 percent.
Currently, if you exclude lung cancer deaths, there are 86,000 fewer deaths each year than there would have been in 1950.
Researchers say grouping lung cancer with other cancers is misleading. The decline of cancer other than lung cancer was .4 percent a year from 1950 to 1990 and almost 1 percent each year from 1990 to 1996. Smoking is also blamed for cancers of the oral cavity, pharynx, esophagus, pancreas, bladder and kidney. Researchers say if all other cancer deaths caused by cigarettes were excluded, there would be a 31 percent drop in the cancer death rate.