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More women will die due to lung cancer in Europe in the next decade than breast cancer, according to a new study. Lung cancer has already taken over breast cancer in the number of deaths due to cancer in two European countries - the U.K. and Poland.

The study was conducted by researchers from Italy and Switzerland. They predict that in the next decade about 1.3 million people will die due to some type of cancer, of which 737,747 will be men and 576,489 women.

Although deaths due to other cancers have been on the decline, deaths due to lung cancer are expected to increase in the future. Lung cancer deaths have increased by 7 percent among women since 2009; while for other cancers, the rate has declined by 6 percent during the same period.

"If these opposite trends in breast and lung cancer rates continue, then in 2015 lung cancer is going to become the first cause of cancer mortality in Europe. This is already true in the UK and Poland, the two countries with the highest rates: 21.2 and 17.5 per 100,000 women respectively," said professor Carlo La Vecchia, M.D., from University of Milan (Italy).

The study included data from 27 member states of the European Union (as of 2007) and also independent countries like France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the U.K. for all types of cancers.

"This predicted rise of female lung cancer in the UK may reflect the increased prevalence of young women starting smoking in the late 1960s and 1970s, possibly due to changing socio-cultural attitudes at that time. However, fewer young women nowadays in the UK and elsewhere in Europe are smoking and, therefore, deaths from lung cancer may start to level off after 2020 at around 15 per 100,000 women," said Carlo La Vecchia in a news release.

Smoking causes 87 percent of all deaths associated with lung cancer in the U.S., says Medline Plus. Apart from lung cancers, smokers are at risk for diseases associated with heart and blood vessels, stroke and cataracts. In women, smoking causes pregnancy-related complications.

The study is published in the journal Annals of Oncology.