Incidence of lung cancer by cell type: a population-based study in New Hampshire and Vermont.

Identified were 1,906 cases of confirmed lung cancer that occurred among all residents of New Hampshire and Vermont over a 4-year period. Medical records, pathologists' reports, and, when possible, pathology slides were obtained and reviewed to assign cases to a specific histologic diagnosis. The diagnosis made by the original pathologist was generally confirmed upon review, except for the large cell undifferentiated cell type which appeared to be an unreliable classification. Among men at all ages incidence rates for squamous cell cancer far exceeded those for adenocarcinoma and small cell undifferentiated carcinoma, and the three age-incidence curves showed a similar pattern, rising until the eighth decade of life and then declining. Among women these three major cell types occurred about equally often, but the age-incidence curves differed in shape with adenocarcinoma reaching a peak incidence at an earlier age.