According to experts, the rising number of cancers caused by smoking is due to medical advances, population growth and the legacy of widespread cigarette addiction.
New research shows that the number of people diagnosed with cancer as a result of smoking has reached an all-time high, with 160 new cases being added every day.
Despite a 17 percent increase in the number of cases since 2003, the number of smokers has declined sharply over the past 20 years.
Lung cancer researcher Dr Rob Hynds of University College London believes there are multiple factors behind the surprising data, not least that even people who quit smoking 20 years ago are still at increased risk of developing cancer.
He said: ‘The number of people dying from lung cancer is going down, which you would expect from the decline in smoking.
Tobacco is known to cause 16 different types of cancer, with lung cancer alone causing 33,000 cases each year
Despite declining smoking rates, smoking-related cancer cases continue to rise as ex-smokers continue to be diagnosed
‘But our understanding of cancer is now much better than before, and as a result we can attribute more types of cancer and cancers to smoking.
‘For example, last year it was established for the first time that a number of annual cases of breast cancer are caused by smoking. These cases were included in the statistics.’
He said population growth is limiting the apparent decline in the number of smokers.
While the percentage of smokers has fallen from 45 percent in 1975 to 13 percent today, the British population has grown by more than 10 million in that time.
Medical advances, including early detection and life-prolonging treatments, have contributed to the increase in the number of cases.
‘We are now significantly better at detecting cancer,’ Dr Hynds said. ‘Lung cancer screenings have started to be rolled out in England and greater public awareness of cancer means it is being detected much earlier.
‘In addition to finding more cases, cases are also being discovered earlier. This gives patients a greater chance of survival.’
According to Dr. Hynds, ex-smokers remain at greater risk of being diagnosed with cancer for years after they quit.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s 2023 health report found that 12.7 percent of Britons over the age of 15 smoke cigarettes daily, much higher than the US and New Zealand.
Your browser does not support iframes.
“We know that in some cases it can be more than 20 years between the mutations that cause lung cancer and diagnosis,” he said.
‘Older people who started smoking at a young age still end up in the system as much as before.
‘It is younger people who never started smoking who have caused the decline in smoking at the population level. Older people who started smoking at a young age and have been smoking for a long time are still being diagnosed with cancer.
‘We are already seeing a significant benefit in lung cancer mortality associated with smoking cessation. In the longer term, we expect that the current decline in smoking will be reflected in a decline in cancer cases.’
The research was carried out by Cancer Research UK, which is calling on the government to reintroduce the Tobacco and Vaping Act.
The new smoking law, first proposed by the Conservative government, would make it illegal for anyone born after January 1, 2009, to buy tobacco products, creating a completely smoke-free generation.
Your browser does not support iframes.
In its election manifesto, Labour pledged to introduce similar legislation and the party is expected to announce this in the King’s Speech from the Throne on 17 July.
According to Dr Katrina Brown, a statistician at Cancer Research UK, ex-smokers who are diagnosed with cancer later in life are partly to blame for the increase in cases.
She told Mail Online: ‘Smoking rates have gone down and hopefully will continue to go down, but the current rates of cancer caused by smoking are a legacy of smoking rates from decades ago.
‘Although we see a decline in the number of smokers, it has not been that way. There have been periods when the number of smokers has decreased, but there have also been periods when the number of smokers has increased slightly.
“That’s what’s causing the cancers we see today, because it takes a while for smoking to cause cancer.”
She added that population growth means that while the number of smokers has decreased, the actual number is still quite high.
“Because people are living longer, there are more people in the world and therefore more people who can get cancer,” she said.
‘The total number of people who smoke now or who smoked in the past is probably higher than ever before because the population size is larger.
‘When someone stops smoking, it takes about 20 years for the increased risk of cancer to return to the level of someone who has never smoked.
‘Quitting is still the best thing you can do for your health, but to some extent the damage has already been done.’
The researchers looked at deaths from 16 different types of cancer that have been linked to smoking.
Because the carcinogens from tobacco and nicotine travel through the body via the blood, they can cause a wide range of cancers.
Dr. Brown pointed out that although smoking rates are declining, people are still taking up smoking.
She said: ‘We know that socio-economic disadvantage is associated with a higher prevalence of smoking.
Men are more likely to smoke than women, and young people who are exposed to smoking at home are more likely to start smoking.
“The reasons why people do it are very complex, but it remains bad for everyone.”
According to Professor Sir Richard Peto of the University of Oxford, while the number of cancers caused by smoking appears to be increasing, the number of deaths has decreased over the past two decades.
“Mortality is more important than incidence, and national mortality trends can be estimated more reliably than incidence trends,” he said.
‘For both men and women, the number of cancer deaths from tobacco use and the total death rate from tobacco use have decreased since the year 2000.’