Between 1976 and 1995, the number of women in New York who died from lung cancer jumped from 19.8 per 100,000 to 32.4, while the disease's rate of death among men, though still roughly twice that for women, dropped slightly. It's clearly the smoking epidemic.'' Since 1955, the number of American men who smoke has steadily decreased from 52.6 percent to almost half that. But women smokers defied that steady decline, and their numbers swelled until 1965. That year, one in three women smoked regularly, according to federal statistics.
Lung cancer is still the greatest cancer killer of both sexes.
It is one of four types of the disease claiming more lives of women statewide now compared to 20 years ago, an analysis of the Health Department data shows. The other growing cancer mortality rates, though dwarfed by lung cancer, stem from liver and bile duct cancer, non-Hodgkins lymphoma and multiple myeloma. This page, and other ASH web pages, may be freely copied and reproduced in print or on other web pages.