Introduction: Smoking prevalence has been declining in men all over Europe, while the trend varies in European regions among women. To study the impact of past smoking prevalence, we present a comprehensive overview of the most recent trends in incidence, during 1988-2010, in 26 countries, of four of the major cancers in the respiratory and upper gastro-intestinal tract associated with tobacco smoking. Methods: Data from 47 population-based cancer registries for lung, laryngeal, oral cavity and pharyngeal, and oesophageal cancer cases were obtained from the newly developed data repository within the European Cancer Observatory (http://eco.iarc.fr/). Truncated agestandardised incidence rates (35-74 years) by calendar year, average annual percentage change in incidence over 1998-2007 were calculated. Smoking prevalence in selected countries was extracted from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Health Organization databases. Results: There remained great but changing variation in the incidence rates of tobacco-related cancers by European region. Generally, the high rates among men have been declining, while the lower rates among women are increasing, resulting in convergence of the rates.
ScienceDirectj o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : ww w . e j c a n c e r . c o m cancer rates were above male rates in Denmark,