Last updated: 11/24/2009

In 2000, the National Hospital Discharge Survey and the National Survey of Ambulatory Surgery Reports outlined the following rates for bronchoscopy with or without biopsy at short-stay hospitals in the United States:

• Both sexes: 8.9 per...
  
  10,000 population
• Males: 10.6 per 10,000 population
• Females: 7.3 per 10,000 population

According to the National Cancer Institute, cancer of the lung and bronchi is the second most common cancer among both men and women and is the leading cause of cancer death in both sexes in the United States. Among men, lung cancer incidence rates per 100,000 people range from a low of approximately 14 among American Indians to a high of 117 among African Americans. Between these two extremes, rates fall into two groups ranging from 42 to 53 for Hispanics, Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, and Koreans and from 71 to 89 for Vietnamese, Caucasians, Alaska natives, and Hawaiians. The range among women is much narrower, from a rate of about 15 among Japanese to nearly 51 among Alaska Natives, only a three-fold difference. Rates for the remaining female populations fall roughly into two groups with low rates of 16–25 for Korean, Filipino, Hispanic, and Chinese women, and rates of 31–44 among Vietnamese, Caucasian, Hawaiian, and African American women. The rates among men are about two to three times greater than the rates among women in each of the racial/ethnic groups.