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Asian American women are getting lung cancer despite never smoking

Over 50% of Asian American women who have lung cancer have never smoked. For Chinese and Indian American women who have lung cancer, that number shoots to 80% to 90%.

Now, doctors are raising the alarm about increasing numbers of lung cancer cases in this community and working to reform the screening guidelines to better include Asian American women. To date, studies of female nonsmokers in Asia have identified risk factors suchas cooking oil fumes, secondhand smoke, air pollution and indoor heating with coal, but no research has focused on Asian American women, Gomez said. Although the two groups are matched in terms of ethnicity and age, the researchers hope to find some differences in genetics, as assessed by saliva samples, and environmental exposure, determined through surveys asking about people’s pasts.

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