Summary

Lung Cancer Info Risks

Actress and comedian Kate Micucci, revealed last month that she had been diagnosed and treated for lung cancer despite having “never” smoked cigarettes. Micucci’s diagnosis came as a surprise to her followers, especially considering she is a non-smoker. However, lung cancer among non-smokers happens more often than most people realize.

(NEXSTAR) – Last month, actress and comedian Kate Micucci revealed that she had been diagnosed and treated for lung cancer despite “never” having smoked a cigarette in her life.

“It was a surprise, but also, I guess it happens,” the “Big Bang Theory” actress said, shortly before confirming she had undergone treatment and is now “cancer-free.”

News of Micucci’s diagnosis came as a shock to followers, especially considering she’s a non-smoker. But like Micucci said, this kind of thing “happens” more frequently than most of us likely imagine.

A 2020 research paper co-authored by Ahmedin Jemal, the senior vice president of the Surveillance & Health Equity Science Department of the American Cancer Society, found that approximately 12.5% of lung cancer patients in a wide-ranging study supported by CDC data were classified as “never-smokers” — a designation given to patients who were not only non-smokers but hadn’t been regular smokers at any previous time.

“Even among never-smokers, lung cancer, because it is very common … is a top 10 leading cause of cancer deaths,” Jemal told Nexstar.

Lung cancers in never-smokers, he said, could stem from a variety of environmental factors, the biggest being secondhand smoke, radon poisoning, pollution, exposure to asbestos, and exposure to arsenic in drinking water. This also means that the type of cancer-causing mutations that develop in never-smokers can be different than the kinds that develop in smokers.

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