In 2004 the UK alone had 153,397 deaths caused by cancer alone. Every year around 38,000 cases of lung cancer are diagnosed in the UK alone.The total population in the UK around that time was estimated at 60.2 million people. A closer look will reveal the true extent of the disease that is slowly being tackled by research. Cancer cases are increasing by 1% per year. Cancer mainly effects people in later life, but is also seen to develop in children and adolescents. More than 75% of deaths from cancer occur in the elderly from the age of 65 and above. With such a high rate of deaths occurring in the elderly, cancer is responsible for 1 in 4 or 25% of all deaths across all age groups throughout the world. This figure is highest in adults under 65 years old, where 1 in every 3, or 33%, of all deaths are caused by cancer.

There are more than 200 different types of cancer but only four of these types were responsible for 48% of all cancer related deaths. Lung cancer was the single biggest type of cancer diagnosed which accounts for 22% of all cancer deaths in 2004. Bowel, breast and prostate cancer were responsible for between 11% and 8% of other cancer deaths. Why is the rate of lung cancer sufferers so high? Simply because of the number of people who smoke cigarettes. Around 80% of all lung cancer deaths are caused by smoking.

Cutting down on smoking or stopping all together would greatly reduce the number of cancer deaths. World-wide, over 1.3 million cases of lung cancer are diagnosed each year. Prolonged smoking is responsible for the greatest number of lung related cancer deaths, with it striking most commonly among those aged 65 years and over. It is very seldom diagnosed in those under 40. Scotland has the highest rate of lung cancer sufferers in the UK. Scotland has a history of high smoking and Scottish men and women have among the highest rates of cancer in the world. Why are the rates so high in Scotland? Exposure to industrial carcinogens and poor diet are believed to contribute to the high rate of sufferers. Asbestos exposure is responsible for around 6% of male lung cancer cases diagnosed. If we look at the whole world, the highest rates of lung cancer in the world are found to be in men in eastern Europe as well as men in North America. The pattern is similar for women with the highest number of sufferers occurring in Denmark, Hungary and Iceland.

In the US, incidences of lung cancer are higher in the black population for men and women while contrastingly, Hispanics and Asians have lower number of cases than the white population.

Children are not immune to smoking with nearly 1 in 4 smoking by the age of 15. How life-time smoking habits are developed occurs in adolescent years, and by 19 they are firmly addicted to smoking. There is evidence that points to the fact that how early on in life someone begins smoking has more of an impact on the likelihood of them going on to develop lung cancer. So the young the habit is formed, the greater the risk of lung cancer. This factor is more prominent than the quantity or length a person smokes from then on after developing the habit or becoming addicted to nicotine.

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