Young Women Who Never Smoked Are Getting Lung CancerHere's Why

"Yeah, definitely. So in general lung cancer is the number-one cancer [killing]people in the U.S., both men and women. If you look at the American Cancer Society, around 226 new226,000 new cases of lung cancer are projected to be diagnosed in 2025. Of those about 50 percent are cancer-related deaths, meaning [roughly] 120,000 people die every year from lung cancer. Now, what'sthe good news is that the incidence has actually been decreasing in the last few years."

"If you look at the American Cancer Society's statistics, in the last 10 years [ of data, which goes through 2021], the, the incidence of lung cancer has decreased in men around 3 percent per year. And it's about half of that in women, meaning it's decreasing [roughly] 1.5 percent per year. So one of the reasons that they think that this might be happening is that there was an uptick in smoking in women around the '60s and '70s, and that's"

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths among U.S. women, surpassing combined breast and ovarian cancer mortality. Approximately 226,000 new lung cancer cases are projected in 2025, with about 50 percent resulting in death, roughly 120,000 fatalities annually. Overall incidence has declined in recent years, falling about 3 percent per year in men and about 1.5 percent per year in women. Historical increases in smoking among women during the 1960s–1970s likely contributed to later elevated rates. Younger women who never smoked are increasingly being diagnosed. Early screening improves detection and survival outcomes.

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