The number of women dying of lung cancer will increase.
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Not good news for Dutch women: the number of women dying of lung cancer will increase over the next ten years. Now an average of 85 women per week die, but in ten years that number will rise to 106 women per week, it writes. General Journal in response to the trend report of the Comprehensive Cancer Center of the Netherlands (IKNL).
“Healthcare must be prepared for much larger numbers of cancer cases,” says IKNL head of the Dutch Cancer Registry Otto Visser AD.
Women more often get lung cancer due to catch-up effect
In women, the number of diagnoses of lung cancer in particular will increase. According to Visser, this has to do with a catch-up effect. Women started smoking later than men, so that the effects only become visible later. The percentage of smoking women has also fallen less quickly than that of men.
The chance of dying from cancer is getting smaller, because the treatments are becoming more effective. But the IKNL has taken this into account in the trend figures: mortality in lung cancer in women is still rising, despite new medical treatment methods.
‘Much higher numbers of cancer cases’
Not only will the number of lung cancer diagnoses increase in the coming years, IKNL also expects an increase in the number of people with skin cancer. Now there are already several tens of thousands per year, but according to the new forecasts, those numbers will increase by 50 to 70 percent. The increase is probably due to the amount of sunlight people are exposed to. “But it is not entirely clear why it is increasing so strongly.”
The IKNL also expects an increase in other forms of the disease. Nearly 300,000 people have had a cancer diagnosis in the decade before the year 2000. In 2032 there will be half a million more: more than 780,000.
“And people who have had cancer often also need extra care, because there are often still late effects such as fatigue and a greater risk of infections. It is important to take this into account,” says Visser.
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‘Women will die more often from lung cancer in the next ten years’