Lung adenocarcinoma promotion by air pollutants.

ABSTRACT: A complete understanding of how exposure to environmental substances promotes cancer formation is lacking. More than 70 years ago, tumorigenesis was proposed to occur in a two-step process: an initiating step that induces mutations in healthy cells, followed by a promoter step that triggers cancer development¹. Here we propose that environmental particulate matter measuring ≤2.5 μm (PM_2.5), known to be associated with lung cancer risk, promotes lung cancer by acting on cells that harbour pre-existing oncogenic mutations in healthy lung tissue. Focusing on EGFR-driven lung cancer, which is more common in never-smokers or light smokers, we found a significant association between PM_2.5 levels and the incidence of lung cancer for 32,957 EGFR-driven lung cancer

SUBMITTER: Hill W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7614604 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature