Deaths from lung cancer in British women under 70 have fallen to their lowest level in 30 years.

Experts say the fall is largely due to a reduction in the number of women who smoke.

A similar trend has already been seen in men, where smoking rates were quicker to fall.

Lung cancer symptoms

Having a cough most of the time Change in a cough you have had for a long time Being short of breath Coughing up phlegm with signs of blood in it An ache or pain when breathing or coughing Loss of appetite / losing weight

Sir Richard Peto, of Cancer Research UK, said: "Half of the people who keep on smoking will eventually be killed by their habit but stopping smoking works surprisingly well.

"Even after many years of smoking, those who stop before they have lung cancer or some other serious disease, avoid most of their risk of being killed by tobacco."

Dr Lesley Walker, the charity's director of science information, described the news as "very promising".

She said: "It suggests that over the next decade we will see lung cancer in women continue to decline."

Smoking is the main cause of lung cancer, with nine out of 10 cases of the disease linked to tobacco.

Rates of lung cancer in the UK were among the highest in the world. But in the last two decades they have dropped.

This is chiefly the result of people in the UK quitting smoking - in 1970 around 60% of adults smoked - today it has more than halved to 27%.

However, Clive Bates, director of the anti-smoking charity Ash, warned that smoking rates have stopped falling.

"We need to re-double efforts to help smokers to quit and young people never to start."

Lung cancer is one of the hardest cancers to treat, but one of the easiest to prevent.

Smoking boom

The latest figures are compiled from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and General Registrar's Office (GRO) data for 2001.

In 1988 there were nearly 6,000 deaths from lung cancer in women under 70 and 6,300 in women over 70.

In 2001 there were 4,550 deaths from lung cancer in women under 70 and 8,500 deaths in the over 70s.

The high figure for the over 70s is a result of the women's smoking boom after World War II.

Men's smoking soared between the two world wars - this translated to a peak in lung cancer in the late 1960s.

However, women's smoking rates climbed later, which translated to a peak in lung cancer increase in the 1980s.

Today only three in 10 men smoke - compared with eight in 10 at the end of World War II.

Cancer Research UK has joined forces with Marie Curie Cancer Care, Quit, Ash and No Smoking Day to promote Lung Cancer Awareness Month throughout January.