“What we saw in 2020 was a very clear increase in the female contingent in lung cancer,” explains its coordinator, pulmonologist Didier Debieuvre (head of department, GHRMSA-Mulhouse). “We went from 16% of women (among people) with lung cancer in 2000 to 24.3% in 2010 and 34.6% in 2020”.
In the under 50s, parity has almost been reached since 41.1% of patients are now women.
Female smoking since the 1960s
In question, the development of female smoking from the 1960s, tobacco being the cause of these cancers in more than 87% of cases in the general population and 75% in women.
If, in the United States, lung cancer has already become the first cause of death by cancer in women, “we expect this to be the case in France shortly”, warns Dr Debieuvre, who fears a “real pandemic”.
However, these cancers remain diagnosed too late, very often at the metastatic stage (58% of cases), which considerably reduces the chances of survival.
Several studies have demonstrated the benefits of CT screening. In the United States, the increase in the early detection of lung cancer since 2014 has saved around 10,100 lives, underlines a study published Wednesday in the British Medical Journal.
Fear of overdiagnosis
In France, this cancer is not covered by organized screening, as is the case with breast, colon or uterine cancer, which is systematically offered to an entire target population.
The health authorities essentially fear a risk of “overdiagnosis”: identifying tumors that do not evolve into cancer and therefore imposing heavy and unnecessary treatments.
They have recently paved the way for a possible generalization. In an opinion issued in February, the High Authority for Health (HAS) encouraged “the implementation of real-life experiments before considering the deployment of a large-scale organized screening program”. In this context, the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) has just launched a pilot study (entitled “Cascade”) which consists of inviting 2,400 smokers or ex-smokers, aged 50 to 74, to get screened.
Increase in mortality rate
“In France as in Spain, the epidemiological situation among women is extremely worrying with an increase in the mortality rate due to this cancer of 3% every year”, she insists, justifying the choice of an exclusively female target. .