Lung conditions are the cause of one in 10 of all deaths in Europe and smoking is a major factor, says a report from the European Respiratory Society.

It says deaths from lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) will rise over the next 20 years because of past smoking rates.

But a British lung charity says lung disease kills one in four in the UK.

Yet it does not receive priority when it comes to prevention, treatment or research funding, it says.

The data, presented in a publication called the European Lung White Book, uses the latest data from the World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control to analyze trends in lung disease.

Disease burden

In the WHO European Region, which stretches from the Atlantic to Central Asia, it found that the four most commonly fatal lung diseases – lower respiratory infections (including pneumonia), COPD, lung cancers and tuberculosis – accounted for one-tenth of all deaths.

Among the 28 countries of the European Union, however, these diseases account for one in eight deaths, the White Book said.

Only Belgium (117 deaths per 100,000 population), Denmark, Hungary and Ireland had higher death rates from lung disease than the UK, at 112 per 100,000 people.

Finland and Sweden had the lowest mortality rates of 53.7 and 55.7 per 100,000.

But the report said the proportion of total deaths attributed to a lung condition is highest in the UK and Ireland, a figure which the British Lung Foundation puts at one in four people.

Health hazard’

The data in the White Book also shows that half of the total socio-economic costs of respiratory disease can be put down to smoking.

It describes tobacco smoking as “the most important health hazard in Europe” and it maintains that smoking is the main preventable cause of death from illnesses such as lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and coronary artery disease.

While smoking rates in many high-death rate countries such as Denmark and the UK have fallen significantly since the 1970s, the report says the long-term effects of those habits are keeping cases of lung cancer and COPD at high levels.

This means the proportion of deaths caused by lung conditions is likely to remain stable over the next 20 years, even though a decrease in lung infections is predicted.

 

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