Premium
What proportion of lung cancer in never‐smokers can be attributed to known risk factors?
Author(s) -
Sisti Julia,
Boffetta Paolo
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
international journal of cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.475
H-Index - 234
eISSN - 1097-0215
pISSN - 0020-7136
DOI - 10.1002/ijc.27477
Subject(s) - lung cancer , attributable risk , epidemiology , demography , medicine , risk factor , environmental health , population , relative risk , china , cancer , oncology , geography , confidence interval , archaeology , sociology
Abstract Though tobacco smoking is the primary risk factor for lung cancer, a significant fraction of lung cancer deaths occur in lifetime nonsmokers. In this article, we calculate the burden of lung cancer in never‐smokers attributable to previously identified risk factors in North America, Europe and China, using population‐based estimates of exposure prevalence and estimates of relative risk derived from recently published meta‐analyses. Population attributable fractions (PAFs) for individual risk factors ranged from 0.40 to 19.93%. Because of differences in the prevalence of exposures, the PAFs associated with several of the risk factors varied greatly by geographical region. Exposure to the selected risk factors appeared to explain a much larger proportion of lung cancer cases in never‐smokers in China than in Europe and North America. Our results demonstrate the geographic variability of the epidemiology of lung cancer in never‐smokers and highlight the need for further research in this area, particularly in Europe and North America.