LUNG conditions are the cause of one in 10 of all deaths in Europe – and smoking IS a major factor.
But a British lung charity says lung disease kills one in four in the UK. Yet it does not receive priority when it comes to prevention, treatment or research funding.
A new a report from the European Respiratory Society says deaths from lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) will rise over the next 20 years because of past smoking rates.
The data, presented in a publication called the European Lung White Book, uses the latest facts from the World Health Organisation and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control to analyse trends in lung disease.
In the WHO European Region, which stretches from the Atlantic to Central Asia, it found that the four most-commonly-fatal lung diseases – lower respiratory infections (including pneumonia), COPD, lung cancers and tuberculosis – accounted for a 10th of all deaths.
Among the 28 European Union countries, however, these diseases account for one in eight deaths, says the White Book.
Only Belgium (117 deaths per 100,000 population), Denmark, Hungary and Ireland had higher death rates from lung disease than the UK, at 112 per 100,000 people.
But the report said the proportion of total deaths attributed to a lung condition is highest in the UK and Ireland, a figure which the British Lung Foundation puts at one in four people.
The data in the White Book describes tobacco smoking as “the most important health hazard in Europe” and it maintains that smoking is the main preventable cause of death from illnesses such as lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and coronary artery disease.
While smoking rates in the UK have fallen significantly since the 1970s, the report says the long-term effects of those habits are keeping cases of lung cancer and COPD at high levels.
This means the proportion of deaths caused by lung conditions is likely to remain stable over the next 20 years, even though a decrease in lung infections is predicted.
Since 2000, the NHS has offered free counselling and drugs to people who want to stop smoking, which results in more people trying to give up the weed.
In conclusion, Prof Francesco Blasi, president of the European Respiratory Society, said of the White Book data: “Both the prevention and treatment of lung diseases will need to be improved if their impact on longevity, quality of life of individuals and economic burden on society are to be reduced in Europe and worldwide.”
Prof Richard Hubbard, from the British Lung Foundation, says the report doesn’t tell the full story of the burden of respiratory disease in the UK.
“Diseases like lung cancer and COPD do kill tens of thousands of people each year, but there are over 40 different types of lung disease,” he said.
“Taken altogether, it is likely that around a quarter of deaths in the UK each year are from respiratory disease – as many are killed by all non-lung-related forms of cancer put together.”
He said one reason for the UK’s high death rates for diseases like lung cancer suggested that patients were visiting their doctor too late.
Prof Hubbard added that treatment and prevention of lung disease was not given enough priority by NHS England, and researchers were not given enough funding.
“For instance, investment in lung cancer research totals around one-third of that allocated to breast cancer, half that allocated to bowel cancer and less than half the leukaemia allocation, even though it kills more people per year than all three put together,” he stressed.