Canada's Inuit population has the highest rates of lung cancer in the world, new
research has found.
Although Inuit once had a low incidence of lung cancer, they are succumbing to
this modern scourge as more of them take up the deadly habit of smoking.
The research, being presented this week, found the rate of lung cancer is twice
as high in circumpolar Inuit as in white people in the United States. When
compared with Inuit populations in Alaska and Greenland, lung-cancer rates are
1½ times higher among Canadian Inuit men and two to three times higher among
Canadian Inuit women.
"This is really a very frightening finding because the cancers that we see today
come from exposure 20 or 30 years ago," said Kue Young, one of the study's
researchers and a professor of public health at the University of Toronto. "Even
if everybody stops smoking today, this high incidence of lung cancer is going to
continue for some time yet."
Dr. Young will present his findings on cancer trends among the circumpolar Inuit
at a conference in Quebec City this week.
The study makes no hypothesis about what is causing the increased lung cancer
rates. But Dr. Young acknowledged that smoking, especially in confined spaces,
causes the cancer to develop. Within homes, there is likely a high rate of
second-hand smoking, he said.
Almost 60 per cent of Inuit adults smoke - more than three times the 17 per cent
of Canadian adults as a whole who do so, according to Statistics Canada.
Dr. Young said he hopes the results of the study will push health agencies to
consider lung cancer among the Inuit "an urgent health need."
"Reduction of smoking is the only long-term prevention strategy," he said.
