New global study on the causes of lung cancer demonstrates the relevance of the MARCHES project
February 16, 2025:
The rising of the lung cancer type adenocarcinoma is linked to air pollution.
The MARCHES project is a 4-year EU-funded research project. MARCHES aims to improve methodologies to assess the health costs of environmental stressors, focusing on air and water pollution. It is estimated by the European Environment Agency (EEA) that air pollution causes about 350,000 premature deaths annually in the EU, contributing to chronic health problems and reducing quality of life for many people.
Now a study highlights that the rising of the lung cancer type adenocarcinoma is linked to air pollution and that lung cancer diagnoses is on the rise among never-smokers worldwide.
The proportion of people being diagnosed with lung cancer who have never smoked is increasing, with air pollution as an “important factor”, according to the World Health Organization’s cancer agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Lung cancer in people who have never smoked cigarettes or tobacco is now estimated to be the fifth highest cause of cancer deaths worldwide, according to the IARC.
"This study is the latest study that documents the extent to which air pollution affects our health and it demonstrates the relevance of the MARCHES project. With The MARCHES project we aim to develop and refine a methodology to assess health costs of environmental stressors such as air pollution", said MARCHES project coordinator Mikael Skou Andersen, Professor of environmental policy analysis, Department of Environmental Science, University of Aarhus.
Most dominant type of lung cancer
Lung cancer in never-smokers is occurring almost exclusively as adenocarcinoma, which has become the most dominant of the four main subtypes of the disease in both men and women globally, the IARC said. Adenocarcinoma is a type of cancer that starts in glands that line the insides of the organs.
About 200,000 cases of adenocarcinoma were associated with exposure to air pollution in 2022, according to the IARC study.
Adenocarcinoma accounted for 45.6% of global lung cancer cases among men and 59.7% of global lung cancer cases among women in 2022. The respective figures were 39.0% and 57.1% in 2020. Adenocarcinoma accounts for as much as 70% of lung cancer cases among never-smokers, according to the IARC.
The study
The study "Estimated worldwide variation and trends in incidence of lung cancer by histological subtype in 2022 and over time: a population-based study" has been published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. The study can be found here: doi.org/10.1016/S2213-2600(24)00428-4