Air pollution a global contributor to lung-cancer deaths, with variation among countries

Reuters Health - 10/09/2021 - Lung-cancer deaths attributable to air pollution are highest in Balkan countries and Poland, as well as China and some southeast Asian countries, a new global analysis shows.

Worldwide, "14% of lung cancers are related to air pollution and air pollution is actually worsening," Dr. Christine Berg of Johns Hopkins Medicine, in Baltimore, said during a press briefing at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 2021 World Conference on Lung Cancer.

"Air pollution is a problem for all of our patients with lung cancer and those at risk. We need to address the many sources of air pollution and greenhouse gases, including fossil-fuel plants, transportation and indoor cooking methods, and we need to switch instead to clean energy sources rather rapidly," Dr. Berg added.

Mounting evidence points to a causal link between air pollution and lung cancer, but the risk varies widely around with world.

Dr. Berg and her colleague, Dr. Joan Schiller, of the University of Virginia, sought to better understand the worldwide variability in lung-cancer mortality attributable to air pollution using readily available global data.

Among people aged 50 to 69 years, Serbia ranked highest in lung-cancer deaths attributable to air pollution, with 36.88 lung cancer deaths per 100,000, followed by Montenegro (34.61 per 100,000), North Macedonia (30.67), Bosnia/Herzegovina (30.64), and Poland (27.97), Dr. Berg reported.

She said it was somewhat of a surprise that Serbia ranked number one, although "both cigarette smoking and air pollution from coal-fired energy production is intense there. Poland also has a problem with smoking and coal-fire pollution," she noted.

Among people aged 70 and older, China ranked highest in lung-cancer deaths attributable to air pollution (98.55 per 100,000), followed by Mongolia (71.11), North Korea (63.45), Laos (62.07), and Montenegro (61.80).

For comparison, in the United States, the number of lung-cancer deaths to air pollution in people aged 50 to 69 and 70 and older is 3.91 and 13.62 per 100,000, respectively, Dr. Berg noted.

"Patterns of cigarette smoking and amounts of pollution from fossil fuel energy sources are most likely the primary drivers of the variability in risk attributable to lung cancer. As the tobacco epidemic is addressed, we also need to address other preventable causes of lung cancer," Dr. Berg said in a news release.

Commenting on this research, Dr. Upal Basu Roy, vice president of research for the LUNGevity Foundation, a leading lung-cancer-focused nonprofit organization, said this research is "important for the lung-cancer community."

"As all of us know, tobacco exposure is one of the biggest factors in lung cancer but we also know that smoking rates are starting to decline, but lung cancer rates continue to increase. It's time that we start investigating other causes of lung cancer and Dr. Berg makes a very good case" that air pollution is one of them, Dr. Basu Roy told the briefing.

It matters, he said, "because the biggest burden of air pollution is shared by low- and middle-income countries, and they will also have the biggest economic impact of lung cancer deaths from pollution. So this is really the time to think globally and act locally," Dr. Basu Roy said.

The study had no commercial funding.

SOURCE: https://wclc2021.iaslc.org/ 2021 World Conference on Lung Cancer, presented September 9, 2021.

By Megan Brooks



Posted on 10 September 202114 September 2021