Nonsmokers account for a growing percentage of aggressive lung cancer cases in the United States and the United Kingdom, new research finds.
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In one study, British researchers found that over seven years the proportion of U.K. never-smokers with non-small cell lung cancer jumped from 13 percent to 28 percent.
Similarly, a study of lung cancer patients at three U.S. hospitals reported that never-smokers accounted for a growing percentage of non-small cell lung cancer patients between 1990 and 2013. These nonsmokers with lung cancer were more likely to be women, the researchers said.
Some experts suspect genetic and environmental factors may be to blame.
Non-small cell cancer - by far the most common type - is aggressive and usually diagnosed at a later stage when it is harder to treat, according to the American Cancer Society. It is especially challenging to detect in nonsmokers because there are no known risk factors that merit screening, researchers said.
The British findings were based on medical records for 2,170 U.K. patients who underwent surgery for lung cancer between 2008 and 2014.
In the U.S. study, a team led by Dr. Lorraine Pelosof analyzed data on more than 12,000 lung cancer patients at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Parkland Hospital in Dallas and Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
Pelosof and colleagues compared data compiled from 1990-1995 and 2011-2013.
"In 1990 to 1995, 9 percent of non-small cell patients were never-smokers. By 2011-2013, nearly 15 percent were," said Pelosof, an assistant professor of hematology-oncology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
In comparison, nonsmokers with small cell lung cancers - a less common form of disease - increased only slightly, from 1.7 percent to 2.5 percent in the later period, the study found.
Small cell cancers account for about 10 percent to 15 percent of U.S. lung cancer cases, the American Cancer Society says. ■
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