e19277 Background: The lung is the commonest site of cancer and has the highest worldwide cancer-related mortality. Past two decades has seen advancements in screening technologies and guidelines, as well as new modalities for treatment. Few studies have reported on lung cancer trends in the 21st century. Our study reports and compares trends in lung cancer mortality in the USA and European Union (EU). Methods: We utilized the World Health Organization (WHO) Mortality Database and Center for Disease Control (CDC) Wonder database. We extracted Lung Cancer mortality data from 2001 to 2017 based on ICD 10 system. Crude mortality rates were dichotomized by sex and reported by year. We computed Age Standardized Death Rates (ASDRs) per 100,000 population using the World Standard Population and USA Standard Population. Lung cancer mortality trends were compared using Joinpoint regression analysis. Results: We analyzed a data from a total of 26 EU countries and USA, of which 6 countries had data till 2017, 12 till 2016, 7 till 2015 and 2 till 2014. We observed that mortality in men was down-trending in all countries except Cyprus and Portugal. In females, there was an increase in mortality in 22 countries. Amongst EU nations, most recently (2017) Hungary had the highest ASDRs for both males and females (64.5/100,000 and 31.0/100,000), whereas the lowest mortality was in Sweden for males (17.3/100,000) and Lithuania for the females (7.58/100,000). Latvia had the highest Estimated Annual Percentage Change (EAPC) in male mortality (-9.6%). Based on recent most data, we saw that there was a significantly lower mortality in males amongst European nations that joined the EU pre-2004 as compared to those that joined the EU post-2004 (p = 0.006). In USA, ASDRs in males and females were 44.3/100,000 and 30.6/100,000, respectively, with EAPC of -5.1% and -4.2% in males and females, respectively. Conclusions: For the study period, we observed expected decrease in lung cancer mortality in males. In contrast, there was a gradual rising trend in lung cancer mortality amongst females. In addition, there was substantial variation between nations. USA has shown consistent downtrend since 2001 where as there have been fluctuations in trends in other EU nations.
Comparison of Time Trends in Lung Cancer Mortality (1990-2006) in the World, from the WHO Mortality Database
