Scientists have found that a person's risk of developing cancer may be affected by their social class.
Researchers at the North West Cancer Intelligence Service carried out a detailed analysis on more than 300,000 English cancer patients to shed light on the incidence of lung, cervical, breast and melanoma skin cancer.
Publishing their findings in the BMC Cancer journal, they reveal that cervical and lung cancer were more common in poor people, while breast cancer and melanoma tended to be found in wealthier people.
Researcher Lorraine Shack, whose study was carried out on behalf of the United Kingdom Association of Cancer Registries, revealed: 'We looked at all invasive cases of lung cancer, cervical cancer, malignant melanoma of the skin and female breast cancer.
'The deprivation statistics were based on average levels of socioeconomic status in the patient's local area.'
The experts point to a number of reasons for their findings. For instance, the higher rate of melanoma among wealthier individuals may be explained by their greater number of overseas holidays, while the high incidence of lung cancer among poor people is likely to be linked to the fact that smoking is 'strongly associated with socioeconomic status'.
Catherine Thomson, head of statistical information at Cancer Research UK, commented: 'This knowledge should help ensure that money spent on screening programmes and on cancer prevention is focused on those groups where the need is greatest.'
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