The largest ever done study on nonsmokers in North America, Europe and Asia and their chances of developing lung cancer found that men who never smoke are more likely to die from lung cancer than women nonsmokers even though they developed the disease at similar rates.

“Lung cancer is a significant public health and medical problem even beyond the overwhelming disease burden caused by tobacco smoking,” Dr. Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society, who led the study, said.

According to current estimates, smoking appears to be the biggest cause of preventable deaths in the US, killing more than 400,000 people annually. Smoking causes nine out of 10 cases of lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer death in men worldwide and the second-leading cause of cancer death among women. Also, secondhand smoking seems to be higher than previously believed, killing almost 40,000 people annually because of cancers, respiratory infections and asthma, conditions also diagnosed in the case of smokers.

At a global level, the World Health Organization estimates that every year more than 1.4 million people die from lung cancer, which is the leading cause of cancer death.

For the study, Thun and colleagues analyzed data on lung cancer incidence and death rates among self-reported never-smokers from 13 studies done from 1960 and 2004. The review included over 630,000 for the incidence data and 1.8 million for the mortality data.

The study found that men who reported never smoking had a 1.1 percent risk of dying from lung cancer before age 85, while women had 0.8 percent. This compares to about 22 percent among men who smoke and 12 percent of women who smoke.

“Concerns have been raised that the risk was higher in women and that the risk was increasing, but this study counters those two misperceptions,” Thun said.

The study was published in the September issue of PLoS Medicine.