Lung cancer has become the deadliest form of cancer among women in Sweden, overtaking breast cancer, Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare said in a report.

"The death rate among women who died from lung cancer was 31 deaths (per 100,000 inhabitants) in 2006, compared to 17.7 in 1987," an increase of 75 percent, the report said.

Among men, deaths caused by lung cancer have decreased by 11 percent between 1987 and 2006, it said.

The figures "are not surprising, they follow the trend" of an increase in cigarette smoking among women in the past 20 years, a spokesman for Doctors against Smoking, Goeran Boethius, told AFP.

He added however that the number of women smokers in Sweden was still quite low "if you compare with the international average."

"Women smoke more than men" and while fewer women smoke now than a few years ago "that will only show up in the statistics much later," he said.

Skin cancer was another type of cancer causing an increasing number of deaths in Sweden, the report showed. Since 1987, skin cancer deaths among women were up by 20 percent and among men by 40 percent.

Source-AFP
SRM