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Scottish cancer deaths fall below UK figures as more quit smoking 

FOR decades Scotland has been seen as dragging down the rest of the UK when it comes to the league tables of patients diagnosed with cancer.

But figures published yesterday show that while Scotland may still be lagging behind, with cancer incidence still higher than in England and Wales, it is closing the gap.

For the first time the number of newly diagnosed cases fell in Scotland, while elsewhere in the UK cases went up. . . .

But despite this high proportion of lung-cancer patients, the levels of lung cancer dropped by 12 per cent in men and 0.5 per cent in women between 1997 and 2000.

The fall in lung cancer among men is part of a steady trend, but women have been less easy to influence when it comes to giving up smoking. Deaths from lung cancer have already overtaken breast cancer as the major cancer cause of death in women.

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