The number of UK patients undergoing surgery for lung cancer has risen by 60%, and operative death rates have almost halved, an audit by the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery has found.

The report tracks the results of more than 400 000 lung cancer operations in the United Kingdom between 1980 and 2010. It shows that until 2006 the number of patients undergoing primary lung cancer resection remained relatively unchanged at 3000 to 4000 each year but that since then the number has grown, reaching 5265 in 2010.

The proportion of patients dying in hospital after the procedure has almost halved over the past decade, falling from 3.8% …