Lung cancer in women exceeds mortality from breast cancer in seven autonomous regions

Although breast cancer is represented by a pink ribbon, lung cancer may well be appointed black onionsince this disease is the most deaths reasons in Spainbehind cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. For many years it was the leading cause of death from cancer in men and little by little it surpasses breast cancer in women. The reason is that it has incidence tripled among women and although the mother has survival About 90% of lung cancers are among the deadliest, with only 22% to 40% of patients surviving after five years.

Only 22% to 40% of patients survive after five years.

Therefore in seven autonomous communities Lung cancer has already surpassed breast cancer in mortality, despite the latter being more common, in terms of total deaths per 100,000 women, and the situation could spread to the rest of the country in the coming years, given that this is a trend. international.

In particular, in Madrid, Asturias, Canary Islands, Cantabria, La Rioja, Navarre and the Basque Country, Lung cancer tops the ranking female mortalitywhile in other regions, such as the Balearic Islands or the Valencian Community, it ranks second – after the breast – and in the rest, as in CataloniaAccording to the Observatory of the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC), it is the third most common after breast and colon.

Spain is the western country where the incidence of lung cancer in women has increased the most, tripling since 2003.

Deaths have risen primarily because the number of diagnoses in women is soaring, tripling nationally since 2003, making Spain the Western country where the rate has increased the most. Oncologists attribute this increase to smokinga bad habit that women have generally adopted Later than in men, and there is a latency period between smoke exposure and tumor appearance.

Reasons

In addition, quitting smoking came later. Percent former smokers It began to grow in 2001, while for men it began in the 80s and the growth rate was more intense. This contributed decreased mortality from lung cancer in men 29% over the past two decades, although the total number of deaths is higher because the incidence is higher – more than 16,000 deaths in 2022. Meanwhile, among women, where almost 6,000 people will die in 2022, the situation is alarming. uptrend.

“Even if they smoke less and for less time, it causes more serious harm due to their lesser ability to destroy the more than 200 carcinogens found in tobacco.”

Javier de Castro

— Head of the Oncology Department of the La Paz Hospital

One of the reasons for the increase, according to Javier de Castro, head of the oncology department of the University Hospital of La Paz, is that exposure to tobacco For women this is more important. “Even if they smoke less and less time, it causes more serious damage due to its lesser ability to destroy more than 200 carcinogens found in tobacco,” he points out.

Besides tobacco, other triggers may include environmental pollution, radon gas, hormonal effects, or genetic factors.

But there are other reasons, given that about 40% of lung tumors in women occur in non-smokers,

while among men, 80% suffer from smoking, according to the specialist. For this reason, de Castro, vice-president of the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology (SEOM), calls for an “in-depth study” of other possible triggerssuch as exposure to tobacco in the environment, environmental pollution, radon, hormonal effects or genetic factors. “It’s important that we do more research to understand and mitigate these risks,” he says.

Differentiating Factors

And women have lung cancer differential factorsthat experts ask to take into account. One of them is that in general terms diagnosis That’s later. In half the cases there is evidence when they are in the stage metastaticbecause I had almost no symptoms before and, since lung cancer occurs in older men, in women, at the first sign, few doctors think it is lung cancer. And the delay has consequences in worse development.

It has been noted that diagnoses in women younger agewhich causes shock to victims

But at the same time, it was noticed that women respond better to treatment and that many diagnoses younger agehence, when there are fewer comorbidities. But knowing that you have lung cancer 40 or 50 years This comes as a shock to victims who suffer from a “double stigma.” “He social rejection it causes lung cancer because it is always associated with tobacco, although it does not always appear in smokers, and they feel that they have a disease that is not appropriate for their age,” De Castro said.

Immunotherapy and targeted therapy have improved survival in recent years.

Achievements

In this black panorama there are a few green shoots that have allowed lung cancer survival rates to rise more in the past 10 years than they have in the past four decades. In 1973, only 10% of patients survived more than 5 years. In 2010, this percentage was 19%, and now some studies increase it to almost 40% (37% in men and 41% in women).

Dr. Luis Paz-Ares, co-director of the Department of Immuno-Oncology at CRIS University Hospital October 12, attributes this progress primarily to immunotherapyallowing “patients with metastatic tumors who had a 5% survival rate to now go from 10% to 30% in five years.”

To this we must add targeted therapy against specific mutations, although the genetic analysis required to identify “targets” depends “on the voluntariness of professionals” as there are no publicly available guidelines, according to the view. Mariano ProvencioPresident of the Spanish Group for Research on Lung Cancer (GECP). And to this we must add that targeted therapy takes on average 14 months from its approval in Europe to its introduction into clinical practice in Spain.