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Study: Black Smokers More Susceptible to Lung Cancer

By Henry J. Fishman, M.D.
ConsumerAffairs.com

December 22, 2005

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A family history of lung cancer may be more significant for blacks than whites. That's the conclusion of some research carried out at Wayne State University.

Detroit researchers found that having a parent, grandparent or sibling with lung cancer before the age of 50 poses a higher risk for blacks than whites.

Researchers tracked more than 7,500 first-degree relatives of 700 people who developed lung cancer at an early age. They compared them with a cancer-free control group.

By age 70, 25 percent of blacks who were smokers and had a close relative with lung cancer developed cancer versus only 17 percent of white.

Blacks with a family history of lung cancer were twice as likely to develop lung cancer as whites, after factoring in other risk factors.

Conclusion: Black smokers may be genetically more likely to develop lung cancer than white smokers.

All smokers should quit. But blacks with a family history of lung cancer should be especially cancer-conscious and be sure to give up smoking.

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