Less-educated women are also less likely to quit. Lung cancer killed 67,600 women in 2000. It has been the leading cause of cancer death in women since 1987, when it overtook breast cancer, which caused 40,800 deaths in 2000. More than 90 percent of lung cancer cases are a result of smoking. The number of cases peaked during the 1990s and is not increasing.
Smoking also raises the risk of cancer of the bladder, kidney, pancreas and oropharynx.
It is associated with an increased risk of cervical cancer as well, but that disease is almost always caused by a sexually transmitted virus, and the role of smoking is not clear. Smoking plays a major role in heart disease and stroke, the leading causes of death in women. It also leads to about 90 percent of the deaths from chronic lung diseases like emphysema, which kill 56,000 women a year. The most worrisome figures, according to the report, are the percentages of girls who smoke. More treatment programs and tighter limits on tobacco advertising and promotion are among the remedies recommended by the report, along with anti-smoking campaigns in the media and further increases in tobacco prices.