US Trend in Tobacco Use and Lung Cancer Mortality

A question was proposed in the comments of the previous entry - how has smoking rate changed after the GIs had been given cigarettes in their rations during World War 2 (early 1940s).

The following graphic displays this trend well. It also shows the lag in time of tobacco use to lung cancer mortality. It's nice to see both the cigarrette consumption and lung cancer mortality decreasing, but sadly this is not true in developing asian and african countries where ciagrette use is becoming very common.

Source: ACS 2008 Cancer Statistics Presentation

The graphic below displays the amount of different cancer deaths that can be attributed to smoking. Lung cancer greatly outranks the rest of the cancers, with an attribute rate of 80-90 percent. However only 20 percent or so of smokers end up with lung cancer, due to other risk factors such as genetics, amount smoked, etc.

Source: ACS Cancer Facts and Figures

Top Cancers in the United States

Here are the most popular figures in general cancer epidemiology - a flavor of things to come for this blog. Please share ideas on what to show in the future.

Notice how deadly Lung, Pancreas , and Leukemia - comparing their incidence and mortality rates. It's interesting how little you hear about Pancreas, Ovary, etc - it's probably because the 5 years survival is so low that there is much less pressure to lobby for these diseases. Overall Men have a 1 in 2 chance of developing cancer in their lifetime, while Women have a 1 in 3 chance.

The jump in prostate cancer in the early 90s is due the PSA screening coming into the mainstream. PSA screening is still controversial today - it has not been proven to extend/save lives as of yet. With prostate cancer's five year survival rate of 99 percent, epidemiologists are asking: should we put putting men through this?

Male death rates over time - notice how lung how over-trumped them all due to tobacco use. The disappearance of stomach cancer is still a bit mysterious.


Lung cancer has recently become the number 1 killer for females, due to a later development of tobacco use. Breast and colon cancer, which diet is a major risk factor, are well ahead of the rest of the cancers

Stat of the Week: Tobacco Deaths

"But if global adult smoking prevalence declines to 20% by 2020, at least 100 million fewer people currently alive will be killed prematurely by tobacco."

How to prevent 100 million deaths from tobacco
Thomas R Frieden, Michael R Bloomberg