We recently heard of “global pandemic” to evoke the rise of lung cancer in women. It must be said thatbetween 2000 and 2020, they were 18% more to suffer from it, reveals a study dubbed KPB-2020, unveiled by France Interahead of the Congress of Pneumology of French Language which will take place from January 21 to 23 in Lille.
Carried out on 9,000 people (i.e. 20% of lung cancer cases per year), this study reveals that 34% of cases of this type of cancer discovered in France in 2020 affected women, whereas in 2000, they were only 16%. Among those under 50, the share of women affected compared to men is 41%..
The main cause ? THE tobaccowhich affects 85% of lung cancer cases. The author of the study confided to France Inter: “This increase is clearly linked to the increase in smoking in women. We are now far from the image of lung cancer reserved for the worker who is a heavy smoker.
Air pollution and cannabis
But cigarettes are not the only culprit, air pollution also plays an important role. This is noticeable because among the 9,000 cases of cancer studied, scientists found that 12.6% of them had never smokedwhereas only 7.2% of them developed this disease without having been tobacco consumers in 2000. This increase is explained by inhaled particles from arsenic, radon (a radioactive gas resulting from the disintegration of uranium and radium present naturally in the ground), asbestos too, or even other pollutants found in the atmosphere and known as potential carcinogens.
Another interesting fact is that among the under 50s observed, a third regularly smoke cannabis. The study observes that overall screening is still lagging behind, most cancers are detected late (60%).
Source : KPB-2020, France Inter.
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