To the Editor: In 1980 lung cancer replaced breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer deaths among women in Washington State, according to information on death certificates filed with the State Health Division. Compared with the prediction in the 1981 Surgeon General's report1 that the lung-cancer death rate could surpass the breast-cancer death rate as early as 1983, Washington State is at least three years ahead of expectations. Steeply rising lung-cancer death rates account for the change; whereas the breast-cancer death rate changed very little between 1972 and 1981 (from 28.1 to 27.3 deaths per 100,000 women), the lung-cancer . . .