WASHINGTON - Reuters


Women who smoke are no more likely than men to get lung cancer but among non-smokers women appear to have a higher risk than men U.S. researchers reported Friday.

Women who had never smoked were 1.3 times more likely to develop lung cancer than men who had never smoked Dr. Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute and colleagues found.

"We noted slightly higher age-standardized incidence rates of lung cancer in women who had never smoked than in men who had never smoked" Freedman and colleagues wrote in the journal Lancet Oncology.

His team looked at a survey of 279214 men and 184623 women aged 50 to 71 first questioned in 1995 or 1996.

"The questionnaire asked participants about their past and current smoking status demographics alcohol intake tobacco smoking physical activity and included a food-frequency questionnaire of 124 items" the researchers wrote.

They were watched until 2003.

"During follow-up lung cancers occurred in 4097 men and 2237 women" the researchers wrote.

Among men who had never smoked 99 got lung cancer compared with 152 women who never smoked.