Why do some people develop lung cancer without a history of smoking?

🔸Lung cancer is linked to smoking more than any other factor, but not all people with this disease are smokers.

🔸Smoking remains the most important risk factor for lung cancer, and about 85% of cases worldwide are related to tobacco use. However, according to estimates, about 20% of lung cancer patients have never smoked.

🔸This question has been one of the most important research puzzles for years about this disease, and now a large study whose results were published in the scientific journal "Science" has identified a genetic factor that, in a small number of these people, can greatly increase the risk of developing lung cancer.

🔸This study was carried out by researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the research institute 23andMe, and it analyzed genetic information from more than 3.3 million people.

🔸The researchers found a rare inherited mutation in a gene called EGFR, which is associated with a significant increase in the risk of lung cancer.

🔸Overall, this mutation was associated with about a 25-fold increase in the risk of developing lung cancer.

🔸But the more striking finding pertains to people who have never smoked. Among them, the likelihood of developing lung cancer in carriers of this mutation was more than 60 times that of people who did not have this genetic change.

🔸Among smokers as well, carriers of this mutation were about 10 times more likely to develop lung cancer.

🔸Of course, these figures do not mean that a large portion of non-smokers have such a risk. This mutation is very rare, and researchers estimated its prevalence in the U.S. population at about one in every 15,000 people.

🔸Read the full report on the Radio Farda website.