More found with deadly lung cancer

LUNG cancer diagnoses have doubled in Guernsey in just three years. Consultant respiratory physician Dr Wasif Anees has revealed that each year about 60 islanders are found to have the deadly disease. Many of those are beyond cure.

Health experts are today - No Smoking Day - urging people not to risk joining those sufferers.

Director of public health Dr David Jeffs said that the twofold rise was down to better detection than before.

A cut in the number of smokers meant that it was more than likely that there were fewer people contracting the disease than in previous years.

The number of people dying from cancer and the total number of deaths were not increasing.

But of those dying from lung cancer, 90% was down to smoking.

'The message remains the same really, people need to cut out smoking,' said Dr Jeffs.

He said that greater and more accurate testing meant that more people were being diagnosed but that did not mean there were more in the population.

Before their condition would have been put down to other things.

'Almost certainly the number is starting to go down because fewer people are smoking,' said Dr Jeffs.

He said that there was roughly a 20-year delay between people starting to smoke and the onset of lung cancer so, hopefully, with fewer people smoking, this would continue to drop.

Statistics show that in 2004, six men and two women aged 45-64 died of lung cancer, as well eight men and two women aged 65-74 and eight men and 10 women over 75.

Guernsey Adolescent Smoke-free Project chairman Alun Williams said that the improvements in the detection of lung cancer were important.

But he said that the fact that 90% of deaths from the disease could be attributed to smoking or indirect exposure showed the importance cutting the risks to second-hand smoke.

The Health Department's planned exemptions to the already approved ban on smoking in enclosed public places and workplaces are set to be unveiled later this week.

Mr Williams said that it was important to stop youngsters smoking. If they started before they were 15, then they are twice as likely to get lung cancer than if they started after they were 20.

Quitline coordinator Andrea Tostevin said that the diagnosis rates showed how many people smoked 20 years ago.

'We would hope that the long-term trend would see a decline as there are fewer people smoking,' she said.

She said that it would be good if people did not start smoking but that if they did start they should quit as soon as possible.

It is running a drop-in sessions today at the PEH in the morning, at Boots in Town in the afternoon and from 6pm at the hospital again.