Lung cancer in people who have never smoked cigarettes or tobacco is now considered the fifth leading cause of cancer death worldwide.
This was reported by The Guardian , UNNand UNN .
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According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), lung cancer in people who have never smoked also occurs almost exclusively in the form of adenocarcinoma, which has become the most common of the four main subtypes of the disease in both men and women worldwide.
According to a study by the IARC published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine, about 200,000 cases of adenocarcinoma were associated with exposure to polluted air in 2022.
In an interview with the Guardian, Dr. Freddie Bray, lead author of the study and head of cancer surveillance at the IARC, said the results highlight the need for urgent monitoring of the changing risk of lung cancer. He added that further research is needed to identify possible causative factors, such as air pollution, in populations where smoking is not considered a major cause of lung cancer.
As smoking prevalence decreases - as seen in the UK and the US - the proportion of lung cancer diagnosed among never smokers tends to increase. Whether the global proportion of adenocarcinomas attributable to air pollution will increase depends on the relative success of future strategies to reduce tobacco consumption and air pollution worldwide.
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According to the IARC, adenocarcinoma accounts for up to 70% of lung cancer cases among people who have never smoked. While lung cancer rates among men have generally declined in most countries over the past 40 years, rates among women have generally continued to rise.
It is not known what proportion of lung cancer cases in the world are among those who have never smoked, but there is evidence that it is growing.
Air pollution can be considered an important factor that partially explains the growing prevalence of adenocarcinoma, which accounts for 53% to 70% of lung cancer cases among never-smokers worldwide