By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Up to 20 percent of women who develop lung cancer have never smoked, U.S. researchers found in a study that suggests secondhand smoke may be to blame.

A survey of a "" >

 
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Oddly Enough
12:35PM EST, Sun 11 Feb 2007
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Many lung cancer cases in nonsmokers: study

Fri Feb 9, 2007 2:44PM EST
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By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Up to 20 percent of women who develop lung cancer have never smoked, U.S. researchers found in a study that suggests secondhand smoke may be to blame.

A survey of a million people in the United States and Sweden shows that just 8 percent of men who get lung cancer are nonsmokers.

""I have a lot of patients who have never smoked,"" said Dr. Heather Wakelee of Stanford University in California, who led the study.

""And because of the stigma, people are embarrassed to speak out about their disease. They feel like as soon as they say they have lung cancer, everyone judges them.""

She said it is not clear why women may be more likely to get lung cancer even if they have never smoked.

""There is a lot of controversy over whether women are more susceptible to smoking at all, whether direct or secondhand smoke,"" Wakelee said in a telephone interview.

Writing in Friday's issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Wakelee and epidemiologist Ellen Chang said they tracked the incidence of lung cancer in more than 1 million people aged 40 to 79. All had taken part in various studies of diet, lifestyle and disease, some going back into the early 1970s.  Continued...

 

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