Influence of air quality on lung cancer in people who have never smoked

Objective

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death. The percentage of people who have never smoked with lung cancer has risen recently, but alternative risk factors require further study. Our goal was to determine the influence of air quality on incidence of lung cancer in people who have smoked or never smoked.

Methods

The cancer registry from a large urban medical center was queried to include every new diagnosis of lung cancer from 2013 to 2021. Air quality and pollution data for the county were obtained from the US Environmental Protection Agency from 1980 to 2018. Patient demographics, location of residence, smoking history, and tumor stage were recorded. Bivariate comparison analyses were conducted in R (R Foundation for Statistical Computing).

Results

A total of 2223 new cases of lung cancer were identified. Mean age was 69.2 years. There was a nonsmoking rate of 8.1%. A total of 37% of patients identified as a racial minority. People who have never smoked were more likely to be diagnosed at an advanced stage. When analyzing geographic distribution, incidence of lung cancer among people who have never smoked was more closely associated with highly polluted areas. People who have never smoked with lung cancer had significantly higher exposure levels of multiple pollutants.

Conclusions

Newly diagnosed lung cancer appears to be more related to poor air quality among people who have never smoked than people who have smoked. Future studies are needed to examine the associations of specific pollutants with lung cancer incidence.