China to have most lung cancer patients in the world by 2025

China will have the most lung cancer patients in the world by 2025, according to experts at a forum in Beijing last weekend.

There will be around a million sufferers across the nation by that time and lung cancer will be the top killer of all Chinese cancer patients, Beijing News reports.

Experts at the forum said smoking is to blame for about 80 percent of cases in China but air pollution is also playing its part, according to the World Health Organisation.

China has a staggering 350 million smokers – 31.8 percent of the world’s total of 1.1 billion – and lung cancer accounts for about 22 percent of malignant tumour deaths, with incidences of the disease rising by 26.9 percent year on year, the forum heard.

The incidence of lung cancer is current 53.57 per 100,000 people in China, while the death rate is 45.57 per 100,000.

Smoking, air pollution, work-related pollutants, chronic lung disease, and genetic susceptibility could all lead to lung cancer, but smoking is the number one cause, said Wang Changli, a member of the Chinese Society of Lung Cancer and a doctor with the Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital.

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