Never-smokers (defined as an individual who smoked fewer than 100 cigarettes in his or her lifetime) are estimated to account for 10 percent of lung cancer cases. However, in the past, researchers have not examined this patient population as extensively as they have studied patients with lung cancer who smoked, according to Timothy G. Whitsett, Ph.D., senior postdoctoral fellow in the cancer and cell biology division at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen).
He presented findings on potential gene mutations and pathway alterations that could lead to lung cancer in never-smokers at the AACR-IASLC Joint Conference on Molecular Origins of Lung Cancer: Biology, Therapy and Personalized Medicine, held Jan. 8-11, 2012.
Source : Science daily
