According to GLOBOCAN201, lung cancer is the most common in the world, with 2,093,878 cases diagnosed (11.6%) every year, and breast cancer is the second most common, with 2,088,849 (11.6%) cases reported annually.
According to data of the SEOM (Spanish Society of Medical Oncology) based on the Spanish Network of Cancer Registries (REDECAN), lung and breast cancer were the most common types in Spain in 2020, with 29,638 and 32,953 new cases diagnosed respectively.
In Catalonia, the website of the ICO-ICS contains data on patients who have survived a cancer of this type 5 years after the diagnosis. You can view the data of the people treated in the ICO-ICS between 2013 and 2017, sorted into men and women.
Both breast and lung cancer have a rate similar to the population, but lung cancer has a higher mortality rate and therefore a lower prevalence after 5 years than breast cancer.
Source: Prepared by the authors based on data of the AECC.
It is important to highlight that lung cancer went from being the fourth most diagnosed tumour in women in 2015 to the third most diagnosed in 2019. That is, it has been found that there are increasingly more women with lung cancer since 1970, probably related to the increase in smoking in women. There is a latency of approximately 20 years between exposure to the carcinogens of tobacco and the possible development of the illness.