Contrary to what has been suggested by recent studies, women do not seem to have a higher risk than men for developing lung cancer if they have comparable histories of smoking.

The new findings, in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, are based on data from two large studies: the Health Professionals Follow-up Study of men and the Nurses’ Health Study of women. The analysis focused on the period from 1986 through 2000 and included 25,397 men and 60,296 women.

During the study period, 311 men and 955 women were diagnosed with lung cancer, Dr. Diane Feskanich, from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and colleagues found. The patients ranged in age from 40 to 79 years.

The rates of lung cancer were similar for men and women. Among current smokers, the number of cases among the equivalent of 10,000 people over 10 years were 232 for men and 253 for women. For former smokers, the numbers were much lower, at 73 and 81 cases.

The differences between men and women could have arisen by chance and were not statistically meaningful.

“The combined nurses and health professionals cohort is the third large American cohort in which there has been no measurable excess of lung cancer among female smokers compared with male smokers, once amounts smoked have been controlled,” Dr. William J. Blot and Dr. Joseph K. McLaughlin, from Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, note in a related editorial.

“With large numbers and consistent findings, the clear picture that emerges from the cohort studies is that women do not have higher rates of smoking-induced lung cancer than men,” they add.

SOURCE: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, June 2, 2004.