According to a recent study, the number of lung cancer cases among non-smokers is increasing, and air pollution may be a factor in this trend.
On World Cancer Day, the study was released in the journal The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.
To estimate the number of cases of lung cancer at the national level for four subtypes—adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, small- and large-cell carcinoma—researchers, including those from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), analyzed data from the Global Cancer Observatory 2022 dataset.
They discovered that the most common subtype of cancer in both men and women is adenocarcinoma, which originates in glands that create fluids like mucus and digestive ones.
According to the scientists, cigarette smoking is thought to have a modest correlation with the risk of adenocarcinoma in comparison to the other subtypes of lung cancer.
“The proportion of lung cancer in those who have never smoked has increased as smoking prevalence continues to drop in numerous nations worldwide,” they noted.
Lead author Freddie Bray, chief of the IARC’s cancer surveillance section, stated, “Among the primary factors of the shifting risk profile of lung cancer incidence by subtype that we see today are changes in smoking behaviours and exposure to air pollution.” The most common cause of cancer-related mortality is lung cancer.
The authors did note that “lung cancer in people who have never smoked is expected to be the fifth highest cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide, appearing nearly exclusively as adenocarcinoma and more commonly in women and Asian populations,” according to the study.
They wrote: “We predicted that there were 908 630 new instances of lung cancer among female persons worldwide in 2022, of which 541 971 (59.7%) were adenocarcinoma.”
Additionally, 80,378 of the women with adenocarcinoma diagnoses worldwide in 2022 were linked to ambient particulate matter (PM) pollution.
“Policymakers and cancer prevention experts looking to create and execute tobacco and air pollution control policies catered to high-risk groups can benefit from the divergent trends by sex in recent generations,” Bray stated.
Nearly everyone on the planet is thought to reside in places that do not fulfil WHO air quality standards as of 2019.
-Raja Aditya
