Variants associated with lung cancer

Genetic variants associated with lung cancer in women who never smoked are reported this week a study in Nature Genetics.

Lung cancer in never smokers is the seventh most common cause of cancer, and is more prevalent in women at a younger age, with a high incidence seen in Asian populations.

Qing Lan and colleagues conducted a multistage genome-wide association study of lung cancer in Asian women who never smoked, including 5,510 women with lung cancer and 4,544 controls drawn from 14 studies across Asia, and replication in an additional 1,099 cases and 2,913 controls. They identify three genomic regions newly associated with susceptibility to lung cancer.