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The new data show that the rate of lung cancer deaths attributable to air pollution varies widely between countries. Serbia, Poland, China, Mongolia, and Turkey are among the worst affected. The analysis shows an association between deaths from lung cancer and the proportion of national energy that is produced from coal.
“Both smoking and air pollution are important causes of lung cancer,” said study presenter Christine D. Berg, MD, former codirector of the National Lung Screening Trial, and “both need to be eliminated to help prevent lung cancer and save lives.
“As lung cancer professionals, we can mitigate the effects of air pollution on causing lung cancer by speaking out for clean energy standards,” she said.
Dr. Berg presented the new analysis on Sept. 9 at the 2021 World Conference on Lung Cancer, which was organized by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer.
She welcomed the recent statement issued by the IASLC in support of the International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies, which took place on Sept. 7. It was a call for action that emphasized the need for further efforts to improve air quality to protect human health.
The findings from the new analysis are “depressing,” commented Joachim G. J. V. Aerts, MD. PhD, department of pulmonary diseases, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
It is now clear that air pollution has an impact not only on the incidence of lung cancer but also on its outcome, he added.
Indeed, previous research showed that each 10 mcg/m3 increase in particular matter of 2.5 mcg in size was associated with a 15%-27% increase in lung cancer mortality. There was no difference in rates between women and men.
A key question, Dr. Aerts said, is whether reducing air pollution would be beneficial.
Efforts to reduce air pollution over recent decades in the United Kingdom have not led to a reduction in lung cancer deaths. This is because of the increase in life expectancy – individuals have been exposed to pollution for longer, albeit at lower levels, he pointed out.
Because of lockdowns during the COVID pandemic, travel has been greatly reduced. This has resulted in a dramatic reduction in air pollution, “and this led to a decrease in the number of children born with low birth weight,” said Dr. Aerts.
Hopefully, that benefit will also be seen regarding other diseases, he added.
The call to action to reduce air pollution is of the “utmost importance,” he said. He noted that the focus should be on global, national, local, and personal preventive measures.
“It is time to join forces,” he added, “to ‘clean the air.’ ”
Dr. Berg’s presentation was warmly received on social media.
It was “fabulous,” commented Eric H. Bernicker, MD, director of medical thoracic oncology at Houston Methodist Cancer Center.
“Thoracic oncologists need to add air pollution to things they advocate about; we have an important voice here,” he added.
It is “so important to understand that air pollution is a human carcinogen,” commented Ivy Elkins, a lung cancer survivor and advocate and cofounder of the EGFR Resisters Lung Cancer Patient Group. “All you need are lungs to get lung cancer!”