Lung Cancer Likely to Surpass Breast Cancer as Killer of Women This Year

Lung cancer will surpass breast cancer as the leading cancer killer of women this year, the American Cancer Society said Thursday.

The society projects that lung cancer will kill 38,600 women in 1985, 200 more than breast cancer. Dr. Robert McKenna, the society’s national president, said at a press conference that at least 75% of lung cancer cases in women are linked to cigarette smoking.

A 20-year-old woman has about a 2 1/2% chance of getting lung cancer eventually if she does not smoke but about a 12 1/2% chance if she does smoke and never quits, Lawrence Garfinkel of the society said. Only 14% of women with lung cancer live five years beyond diagnosis, he said.

“We know that the women who are today’s lung cancer victims are, for the most part, women who adopted the cigarette habit during and after World War II,” McKenna said.

The disease takes decades to develop after smoking begins, said Virginia Ernster, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of California’s School of Medicine in San Francisco. Men, for whom lung cancer is already the leading cancer killer, started smoking in great numbers earlier than women, she said.

McKenna called on feminist organizations, women’s magazines and consumer groups to oppose what he called “glamorization and undue promotion of cigarettes to women and teen-agers.”

A total of 144,000 Americans--98,000 men and 46,000 women--will be diagnosed as having lung cancer this year, and 125,000 of both sexes will die, making lung cancer “the unchallenged leader in cancer deaths in the United States,” Garfinkel said.