Rising Lung Cancer Rates Targets Asian Women Nonsmokers in California

Real-world data from Kaiser Permanente Northern California reveal that while lung cancer rates are falling among most racial and ethnic groups, Asian women who do not smoke are experiencing a doubling in incidence, increasing roughly 2% per year. Current U.S. screening guidelines, which target older individuals with a smoking history, leave this high-risk group largely unscreened.

Dr. Jeffrey B. Velotta, thoracic surgeon at Kaiser Permanente Northern California, explains in an interview with CURE, that the data, collected over the past eight years across all members, confirms a true rising trend and has helped alert patients that risk exists regardless of smoking history.

Transcript

Can you explain the recent trends in lung cancer rates among different populations in Northern California, and what your research found?

The data that we looked at, which we just published a year ago, we're really excited about, was to examine a period of the last eight years. Again, it was to look at all the people, so all our Kaiser members. Whether you're white, Black, Latin, Asian, male, female, with a smoking history or not, we looked at all of that, and we wanted to see what the chance was of getting lung cancer. More specifically, we wanted to see what the lung cancer incidence was in all these people. Not surprisingly, lung cancer, whether you smoke or not, was dramatically decreasing in all races and ethnicities other than Asian, like white, Black, and Latin.

Okay, so that's kind of what we see nationally. A lot of people don’t realize this; they think lung cancer is just going down overall. What we found, and this is the pertinent part of the study, was that Asian non-smoking woman, and men too, but mostly women, were experiencing a doubling of lung cancer rates, increasing at 2% per year — so dramatically increasing. Everyone else was decreasing.

When we found that, it verified that this trend is truly happening, and it’s not just a phenomenon I was seeing in the clinic. Because of that research, we've been able to alert people, alert patients, and let people know that you could be at risk regardless of smoking. This research really validated what many of us were seeing in our clinics. At the time, we didn’t know if it was just me noticing it, or if it was just a few of us, but clearly, it’s something happening across all Northern California.

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

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