Research shows lung cancer diagnosis on the rise among never-smokers worldwide

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Rates of lung cancer among people who have never smoked is increasing worldwide, a new study has found.  Several factors are contributing to the rise.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, Lorna, and thanks for having us on. No, it doesn't. I think lung cancer

00:07is very misunderstood across Australia. If we had 10 women in front of us right now,

00:16four of those being diagnosed with lung cancer would be never smokers. And what we do know

00:21and what the research has told us is there are a whole range of factors which are contributing

00:26to the substantial increase in lung cancer diagnosis, not the least of which is the air

00:32that we breathe, the type of occupation we might have if we are working in heavy industries

00:39or dusty environments, or it may just come down to jet poor genetics, bad luck in your

00:46genetic makeup.

00:47That's really interesting, but I'm guessing that cigarette smoking is still the major

00:52causal factor of lung cancer.

00:54Yeah, that's right. I mean, smoking and an addiction to tobacco is a leading contributor

01:00to most cancers. It is really important that we acknowledge that lung, of course, has been

01:07associated with smoking for over 50 years. And that's not an individual's fault. Smoking

01:13is an addiction like any other addiction. And the message on World Cancer Day today

01:19is that we need to treat all cancers equal, obviously, and lung cancer doesn't deserve

01:25the bad rap it sometimes gets.

01:28Mark, with a decline in smoking rates here in Australia, have the instances of lung cancer

01:35overall gone down?

01:37No, indeed, we're at the top of a curve and that curve will continue as many Australians

01:45who elected to smoke in the 50s, 60s and 70s and 80s, where we began to see the sharp

01:52decrease in tobacco smoking. We're now beginning to see those individuals enter their twilight

01:58years, so their 50s, 60s, 70s, and those are the ages that are overrepresented in lung

02:04cancer. So we're not surprised that we're heading to the top of the bell curve. I think

02:10what many of us have looked at globally is this trend, as you say, of the increasing

02:15number of women, particularly women in South East Asia, who are never smokers, who are

02:21now being diagnosed with lung cancer. And whether that's as a consequence of family

02:25history or some exposure, we'll need to do much more research on that.

02:30Yeah, it's interesting. Do you think the World Health Organization, the ones that commissioned

02:34this study, the likes of your organization, need to adapt the messaging then somewhat?

02:40Yeah, very much so. I think, as I said, lung cancer is plagued by the stigma of tobacco

02:47addiction. We need to create, as a community, much greater empathy towards people diagnosed

02:54with lung cancer. I mean, a diagnosis of cancer is incredibly traumatic and devastating for

02:59anyone regardless of how they've contracted their cancer type. I mean, I go to great lengths

03:09to explain that we don't say to women, for example, that are diagnosed with breast cancer

03:15that you drank too much wine, or we say to people diagnosed with bowel cancer, it's as

03:19a consequence of your poor diet, or if you have a melanoma, you didn't wear enough sunscreen.

03:25There are numbers of causal factors for lung cancer, and it's really important that Australians

03:32show much more empathy, that they really focus in on a diagnosis being an incredibly traumatic

03:40event rather than how you got to that.

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