Progress against lung cancer, Denmark, 2008–2022

Background and purpose: There has been marked progress against lung cancer in Denmark. To gain further insight into the different aspects of the improvement, we examined the stage-specific incidence rates, stage-specific survival and mortality rates.

Materials and methods: We used information from the Danish Lung Cancer Registry on date of diagnosis and clinical stage to calculate age-standardised incidence rates and patient survival by sex, period and stage. Information about age-standardised lung cancer-specific mortality rates by sex and period was extracted from The Danish Health Data Authority.

Results: Firstly, the decrease in incidence rates was due to a reduction in the rates of advanced stages. Secondly, there was a gradual increase in survival across all stages, and thirdly, the mortality rates gradually decreased over time.

Interpretation: The improvements in survival and mortality from lung cancer were due to decreasing incidence rates of advanced cancer and improvement in survival at all stages of the disease.