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Among women, lung cancer mortality rates have surpassed those for breast cancer in several countries. This reflects the breast cancer mortality declines due to access to screening and effective treatment alongside the entrance of certain countries in stages of the tobacco epidemic in which smoking becomes more prevalent in women. In this study, we project lung and breast cancer mortality until 2030 in 52 countries. Cancer mortality data were obtained from the WHO Mortality Database. Age-standardized mortality rates (ASMR), per 100,000, were calculated (direct method) for 2008 to 2014 and projected for the years 2015, 2020, 2025, and 2030 using a Bayesian log-linear Poisson model. In 52 countries studied around the world, between 2015 and 2030, the median ASMR are projected to increase for lung cancer, from 11.2 to 16.0, whereas declines are expected for breast cancer, from 16.1 to 14.7. In the same period, the ASMR will decrease in 36 countries for breast cancer and in 15 countries for lung cancer. In half of the countries analyzed, and in nearly three quarters of those classified as high-income countries, the ASMR for lung cancer has already surpassed or will surpass the breast cancer ASMR before 2030. The mortality for lung and breast cancer is higher in high-income countries than in middle-income countries; lung cancer mortality is lower in the latter because the tobacco epidemic is not yet widespread. Due to these observed characteristics of lung cancer, primary prevention should still be a key factor to decrease lung cancer mortality. The mortality for lung and breast cancer is projected to be higher in high-income countries than in middle-income countries, where lung cancer mortality is expected to surpass breast cancer mortality before 2030. .

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The COVID‐19 pandemic led to potential delays in diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients, which may negatively affect the prognosis of these patients. Our study aimed to quantify the impact of COVID‐19 on the short‐term survival of cancer patients by comparing a period of 4 months after the outbreak began (2 March 2020) with an equal period from 2019. All cancer cases of the esophagus, stomach, colon and rectum, pancreas, lung, skin‐melanoma, breast, cervix, and prostate, from the Portuguese Oncology Institute of Porto (IPO‐Porto) and diagnosed between 2 March and 1 July of 2019 (before COVID‐19) and 2020 (after COVID‐19) were identified. Information regarding sociodemographic, clinical and treatment characteristics were collected from the cancer registry database and clinical files. Vital status was assessed to 31 October of the respective years. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to estimate crude and propensity score‐adjusted hazards ratio (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) of death. During follow‐up to 31 October, there were 154 (11.8%) deaths observed before COVID‐19 and 131 (17.2%) after COVID‐19, corresponding to crude and adjusted HRs (95% CI) of 1.51 (1.20‐1.91) and 1.10 (0.86‐1.40), respectively. Significantly higher adjusted hazards of death were observed for patients with Stage III cancer (HR = 2.37; 95% CI: 1.14‐4.94) and those undergoing surgical treatment (HR = 3.97; 95% CI: 1.14‐13.77) or receiving radiotherapy (HR = 1.96; 95% CI: 1.96‐3.74), while patients who did not receive any treatment had a lower mortality hazards (HR = 0.62; 95% CI: 0.46‐0.83). The higher overall short‐term mortality observed during the COVID‐19 pandemic largely reflects the effects of the epidemic on the case‐mix of patients being diagnosed with cancer.