The largest-ever investigation in Britain into lung cancer has shown that women are more likely than men to develop the most serious form of the disease.

The study involved more than one-and-a-half thousand patients.

It found that nearly twice as many women as men, under the age of sixty-five, are diagnosed with what is known as small-cell lung cancer.

This is almost always caused by smoking, and in seven cases out of ten it cannot be helped by surgery.