Cancer risk for non-smokers

2005-08-10 14:39

Milwaukee - Most lung cancers occur in smokers, but non-smoker Dana Reeve's situation is not as uncommon as it appears.

Like Reeve, widow of Superman star Christopher Reeve, one in five women diagnosed with the disease never lit a cigarette, doctors say. Yet they share an unfortunate stigma with cancer patients who smoked.

"The underlying assumption is, you were a smoker and you caused this, therefore you're not going to get my sympathy," said Tom Labrecque jun, who started a foundation to raise awareness after his non-smoker father died several years ago of the disease.

No one "deserves" lung cancer, doctors say. But non-smokers respond better to the newest targeted cancer drugs like Iressa and Tarceva.

That's because people who get lung cancer early in life, like Reeve, 44, are more likely to have genetic factors fuelling their disease, doctors say. Only 3% of lung cancers occur in people under 45, regardless of smoking status.

Reeve, an actress who leads a paralysis research foundation named for her husband who died last year, disclosed she was being treated for lung cancer but gave no details on how or where.

ABC News anchor Peter Jennings, a smoker, died of lung cancer at age 67 recently.

Deadliest form of cancer

Despite their different smoking histories, they share the most common cancer in the world, and the deadliest. This year in the United States, an estimated 93 010 men and 79 560 women will be diagnosed with lung cancer and almost an equal number - 90 490 men and 73 020 women - will die of it.

About 10% of men and 20% of women with lung cancer never smoked, and the number of non-smokers with the disease does not seem to be rising significantly, said Dr Michael Thun, chief epidemiologist for the American cancer society.

But awareness may be on the rise because of the aggressive anti-smoking campaigns in recent years. And the stigma may be rising, too.

When people get lung cancer, people say, 'Did you smoke?"' said Susan Mantel, executive director of Joan's Legacy, a fund-raising group named for Joan Scarangello, a non-smoker and former head writer for newsman Tom Brokaw. Scarangello died in 2001 of lung cancer, as did her non-smoking mother before her.

Dr Bruce Johnson of Dana-Farber cancer centre in Boston said non-smokers who have surgery for their cancer have a lower risk of developing a second tumour than smokers. Smokers who quit after cancer surgery have better survival odds, he noted.

Decline in cigarette consumption

Researchers now are studying whether non-smokers do better in general on chemotherapy than smokers, he said.

"Cigarette consumption is down where it was at the start of World War II. About one in five people are current smokers," Thun said.

"Lung cancer death rates have fallen 17% in men from 1990 to 2002. Both incidence and death rates have levelled off in women, so we are turning the corner."

- AP