MONDAY, Oct. 7, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Implementation of a tobacco-free generation could substantially reduce global lung cancer mortality, according to a study published in the October issue of The Lancet Public Health.

Julia Rey Brandariz, Ph.D., from the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and colleagues estimated the impact of eliminating tobacco smoking on lung cancer mortality in people born from 2006 to 2010 in 185 countries. The impact of banning tobacco sales was simulated using data from the World Health Organization Mortality Database and Cancer Incidence in Five Continents.

The researchers predicted that 2.9 million lung cancer deaths could occur in the 2006 to 2010 birth cohort if lung cancer rates continue to follow trends from the past 15 years (62.4 percent of predicted deaths in male individuals). However, 40.2 percent of predicted lung cancer deaths could be prevented if tobacco elimination (a tobacco-free generation) was achieved. The impact of prevented deaths would be greater in male than female individuals (45.8 versus 30.9 percent). The highest population impact fractions (PIFs) were seen for male individuals residing in Central and Eastern Europe (74.3 percent) and female individuals residing in Western Europe (77.7 percent). Overall, PIFs were 13.5 percent of deaths in low-income countries, 15.8 percent of deaths in lower middle-income countries, 43.9 percent of deaths in upper middle-income countries, and 61.1 percent of deaths in high-income countries.

“Part of the reason why eliminating smoking could save so many lives in low- and middle-income countries is because they tend to have younger populations than high-income countries,” coauthor Isabelle Soerjomataram, Ph.D., from the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, said in a statement. “Smoking also remains very common in many of these countries, while rates have fallen in many high-income countries.”

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