Women are more susceptible to lung cancer than men, even if they smoke less. The findings, based on analysis of genetic material in both sexes, were outlined to lung cancer specialists yesterday in Dublin. Proof that women have a genetic predisposition to lung cancer comes with confirmation that smoking among women, particularly teenage girls, is increasing both in Ireland and the rest of the developed world. The study was carried out by Dr Aage Haugen at the National Institute of Occupational Health in Norway.
Lung cancer is already the most common malignancy in the world and is strongly associated with cigarette smoking, Dr Haugen said. However, only between 10 and 20 per cent of lifetime smokers develop lung cancer.
This suggested a genetic link with the disease, but it was only recently that "genetic susceptibility factors" could be adopted to evaluating lung cancer risk. Lung cancer, therefore, resulted from a combination of environmental factors - usually smoke - and genetic susceptibility.
Mutagens - foreign substances causing genes to mutate - are in cigarette smoke which comes in contact with the lung surface, forming what are described as "mutagenic DNA adducts", the level of which has been shown to be a reliable indicator of predisposition to cancer. Women have higher levels than men. He described evidence of women's susceptibility, even if they smoke less, as "astonishing".
This "new, exciting and promising area of research" also provides further an indication of why a person who smokes three packets of cigarettes a day and another with "minimal tobacco exposure" can both develop the same form of cancer.
Those with high DNA adducts, "cancer-susceptible individuals", developed cancer despite being exposed to smaller smoking doses, and having smoked for a shorter duration in comparison to those with low adduct levels, he said.
