Women smokers more likely to get lung cancer, says study

Women smokers are twice as likely as men to develop lung cancer from cigarette smoking, an American cancer expert says.

Men and women who smoked similar numbers of cigarettes showed a marked difference in the likelihood of developing the disease, Professor Diane Stover told the American Thoracic Society conference in San Francisco.

Women were more vulnerable because of differences between men's and women's lung tissue, the way they "process" cancer-causing agents, and the presence of the female hormone oestrogen and the X-chromosome, she said.

Professor Stover, a New York oncologist, said women were more prone to the disease although they smoked less, inhaled less deeply and started smoking at a later age than men.

- INDEPENDENT