Why do non-smokers develop lung cancer?

San Francisco Chronicle – Every year roughly 20,000 people who have never touched a cigarette are diagnosed with lung cancer -- and women are particularly at risk, for reasons no one understands.

Recent research has suggested that women who don't smoke are two to three times more likely than nonsmoking men to develop lung cancer.

"People talk about secondhand smoke, but there are other environmental pollutants," said Dr. Heather Wakelee, an assistant professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. "We just don't understand it."
Research also suggests that women may be more vulnerable than men to the carcinogenic effects of smoking -- in some studies, women who smoked have been shown to be roughly twice as likely to develop lung cancer as men who smoked.

Wakelee, who is set to publish a new study on nonsmoking women and lung cancer in the next few months, said the research is too new to come up with a reason for why nonsmokers get cancer, and why women are especially at risk. Almost all studies have looked at patient records -- not actual patients -- which don't include all of the environmental factors, such as exposure to airborne pollutants, that could lead to lung cancer.

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