While lung cancer remains the most fatal form of cancer worldwide, people who have never smoked are forming a growing proportion of those fighting the disease. In 2022, around 2.5 million people were diagnosed with him.
Less smokers in many countries, including the United States, can explain part of that change in the causality of cancer. But air pollution can also be playing a growing role, according to a study by the World Health Organization. published in it Lancet respiratory medicine diary.
The study estimates that lung cancer in people who have never smoked cigarettes or tobacco in any way is now the fifth highest cause of cancer deaths worldwide. Lung cancer forms are also changing along with the causes.
Cause of lung cancer
Lung cancer in people who have never smoked is almost exclusively adenocarcinoma. This form of cancer is now the most frequent of the four main subtypes for men and women worldwide. The other subtypes are squamous cell carcinoma, small cell carcinoma and large cell carcinoma.
Around 200,000 cases of adenocarcinoma were associated with exposure to air pollution in 2022, with the largest load in East Asia, particularly China, according to the study. Adenocarcinoma represented 45.6 percent of world cases of lung cancer between men and 59.7 percent of world cases of lung cancer between women in 2022. In 2020, the respective figures were 39.0 percent among men among men and 57.1 percent among women.
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Demographic change
There are also some demographic changes in lung cancer, particularly by gender. While men continue to explain most lung cancer cases, with approximately 1.6 million worldwide in 2022, the gender gap is being reduced. Around 900,000 women were diagnosed with the disease in 2022.
That change has been underway for a while. A previous study He showed that during 1991 to 2018, the proportion of ever smokers increased among men (35.1 percent to 54.6 percent) and women (54.0 percent to 65.4 percent). Compared to current or previous smokers, those who had never smoked had an incidence 86 percent lower death from lung cancer.
Cancer experts say that smoking rates reached their maximum point much earlier than in women. Women now must monitor lung cancer as vigilantly as they do for breast cancer, the study points out.
Looking for causal connections
Many unknowns are left. Although the data now show a correlation between air pollution and lung cancer, researchers have not yet firmly established a causal link. Scientists will probably increase the investigation of this potential connection, as well as the search for other possible causes of lung cancer in addition to smoking and air pollution.
“Air pollution can be considered an important factor that partly explains the emerging predominance of adenocarcinoma that represents from 53 percent to 70 percent of cases of lung cancer among people who have never smoked worldwide,” according to The study.
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Before joining Discover, Paul Smaglik spent more than 20 years as a scientific journalist, specializing in the United States Life Science Policy and global scientific career problems. He began his career in newspapers, but changed to scientific journals. His work has appeared in publications that include scientists, sciences, nature and American scientific.
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