Rising cancer rate leads to calls for smoking controls

The high rate of lung cancer in Beijing, which has increased dramatically over the past decade, shows the necessity for stricter control of smoking, experts said.

The incident rate of the disease in 2010 was 56 percent higher than it was in 2001, with an average annual growth rate of 2.4 percent, according to the Beijing Health Bureau.

Lung cancer also accounted for a large proportion of malignant tumors that occurred in residents in 2010. It is not only the most prevalent kind of tumor in male cancer patients, but also the second-most prevalent in female cancer patients, after breast cancer.