MASHPEE - Tobacco settlement money totaling $125,000 has been secured to fund an Upper Cape lung cancer study.

State Rep. Nancy Caffyn, R-Mashpee, said lung cancer rates are much higher for women on the Upper Cape than for the rest of the state. Caffyn said she introduced the amendment that steered some of the state's share of the legal settlement with tobacco companies to the study. According to figures from the state Cancer Registry, female lung cancer on the Upper Cape - which defined by the government encompasses Barnstable, Bourne, Falmouth, Mashpee and Sandwich - is 34 percent above the state average, with 318 cases observed between 1990 and 1995. Caffyn said she plans to meet with the assistant commissioner of the state Bureau of Environmental Health on Nov. 1 to discuss how to proceed with the study. The state representative said some of the money will go to support the activities of the Upper Cape Lung Cancer Group, which has been examining the higher incidence of lung cancer among women in the western part of the Cape.

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