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. ~ ~Ct+Re V 015.Gyn. News May 15-31, 1985 ~ i Breast ' j~J ~ ('~ ' ~ breast cancer are advanced age at the ~ , --- un n Men, Bre~.s4 l~ r 1`omen TQ ~a ~n Eu~~ _e time of first childbirth and a high stan- A International Medical News Service MILAN, Italy - Lung cancers among men and br€ast cancers among women are going to be the leading cancers in Europe, at least for a while, Dr. Matti Hakama said at the First European Meeting on New Trends in Medicine. Time trend analysis of cancer in Eu- rope shows that 1,400,000 new cases of cancer occur annually, nearly a third involving the lung. Breast cancer and stomach cancer rank next, with only a small difference in their frequencies. As the population increases-particu- larly of the elderly-the number of new cases of cancer is likely to rise, even if the individual risk remains the smoking. As smoking habits are modi- same, said Dr. Hakama, professor of fied, more young men escape death epidemiology at the University of from lung cancer; in England and - Tampere (Finland) Faculty of Medi-. Wales, lung cancer mortality is chang- cine. ~ ing for various age groups, with the TAe incidence of cancer is increasing youngest showing the steepest decline. more among women than among men. Cancer of the_breast, the most com- Lung cancer is the most common in mon cancer in European women, is men, particularly in England, Finland, increasing in incidence, although mor- and Central European countries. But in tality varies across the continent. Coun- other countries, the increasing rate of tries with the highest incidence of the lung cancer has tapered off in the past disease show the least increase in mor- decade. tality, perhaps because of improvements "Major downward trends" in the in- in the treatment available to high-risk cidence of lung cancer could occur if populations. only a small proportion of men stopped The most important risk factors for Prostate cancer is increasing in fre- quency, in direct correlation with lon- gevity of men. Some of this increase may reflect improved diagnostic proce- dures, which allow diagnosis of pre- clinical cases, Dr. Hakama suggested. Skin melanomas are also becoming more common. In some nationalities, it is the most rapidly increasing type of cancer, and there are no indications that its growing incidence will soon level off. This increase and• the can-s cer's distribution suggest that a signifi-t cant risk factor may be northern Euro- peans' brief but intense exposure to sunlight in southern Europe during vacations. dard of living, with its possibly harm- ful diet. Neither risk factor is apt to , change in the near future, so it seems " likely that the e rate of breast cancer will 1~ increase. ~ So will the absolute numbers, as ~ new cases occur and more patients sur-' q vive. By the year 2000, the prevalence of breast cancer in people living in Finland may be higher than the preva- lence of all cancers among those wom- en and men in 1970, Dr. Hakama predicted. Stomach cancer, common in Eastern Europe, is rare in Scandinavia and En- gland. The rate of stomach cancer is declining throughout Europe among populations of all ages, perhaps because of dietary changes. Rates of some genital cancers in women are increasing, while rates for others are decreasing. Cancer of the ovary is rare in Italy, but ovarian cancer mortality is increasing in most Euro- pean countries. In the Nordic countries, the inci- dence of cervical cancer increased steadily with changing sexual behavior- patterns through the mid-1960's. But as cervical screening programs have gotten under way, the trend has turned downward in all countries except Nor- way.