Report reveals lung cancer hot-spot

People living in the west of Scotland are 50% more likely to be diagnosed with lung cancer than in the rest of the UK, a report said.

The statistics also showed that residents in the west of Scotland were 15% more likely be diagnosed with the disease than people from other parts of Scotland.

And they are also 30% more likely to die from lung cancer than those elsewhere in Scotland, and the rate of people dying from the disease was 50% higher than in the rest of Britain.

Higher levels of deprivation were partly to blame, experts said.

The figures, contained in a report by the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN), will be unveiled at a major cancer conference in Birmingham.

Professor David Forman, of the NCIN, who is based at the University of Leeds, said: "Smoking rates are around 5% higher in Scotland than the rest of the UK, and this significantly contributes to the higher rates of lung cancer - smoking is responsible for nearly nine in 10 cases of lung cancer.

"We know that smoking rates are linked to deprivation - rates are about 10% higher in working class communities."

The report compared cancer incidence and mortality rates across the UK, divided into areas known as "cancer networks".

There are three networks north of the border, with the West of Scotland cancer network covering Ayrshire and Arran, the Forth Valley, Greater Glasgow and Clyde, and Lanarkshire.

The figures, compiled this year, are based on new cancer cases and deaths recorded in 2005, before the ban on smoking in public places came into place in Scotland in 2006.

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