Science / Medicine : Drive to Cut Lung Cancer Deaths Has Mixed Results

Lung cancer deaths among white American men have leveled off and should begin to decline in the mid-1990s because fewer of them are smoking, the National Cancer Institute said in a report issued last week.

Lung cancer deaths of women and black males are not expected to decline until after the year 2000 because they have been slower to stop smoking.

The report said white males died of lung cancer at a rate of 73.2 per 100,000 in 1987 and the number fell to 73.0 in 1988. Lung cancer is the No. 1 source of cancer death among women, with 51,000 deaths expected this year, a rise of 420% from the 1950s.

Black men have lung cancer at a rate 35% higher than white men. This year, about 97 black men per 100,000 will die of lung cancer, compared with 73 white men per 100,000.

Although fewer people of all types smoke since the government health campaign started in the late 1960s, nearly one-third of black males smoke, compared with 27% of white males. Twenty-five years ago, nearly half of white men smoked.