Even As Cigarette Smoking Declines, Explosive Growth In China's Lung Cancer Caseload
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Back in the 1970s, when Bai Chunxue was in medical school, the textbook lung cancer patient was a chain-smoking male in his 60s. Nowadays, Bai, one of the physicians who treated the teen, sees so many who are still in their 20s that the cases blend together. "When I see patients who are not smokers with no other risk factors, we have to assume that the most probable cause is pollution," said Bai, who works at Shanghai's Zhongshan Hospital and is chairman of the Shanghai Respiratory Research Institute.
Increasingly, other Chinese physicians are reaching the same conclusion. At a time when cigarette smoking is on the decline in China, the nation is facing an explosion of lung cancer cases.
From 2002 to 2011, the incidence of lung cancer in Beijing rose to 63 cases per 100,000, from 39.6, according to municipal health authorities. Nationwide in the last three decades, an era in which China opened up its economy and industrialized, deaths from lung cancer have risen 465%.
In a country that manufactures 1.7 trillion cigarettes a year, smoking is still cited as the leading cause of lung cancer. But these days, only about half of Chinese men smoke, down from 63% in 1996. The additional culprit, doctors believe, is the fine particulate matter known as PM 2.5, the microscopic particles from exhaust, coal smoke and vehicle fumes that can burrow their way into lungs.
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http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-china-lung-cancer-20131224,0,3058283.story#axzz2oOdOfwCt