Your chances of developing lung cancer go up when you combine three factors:

1. Asbestos exposure,
2. Asbestosis,
3. Smoking…

Not only did research scienctist Steven B Markowitz , MD, Phd. and his team at Queens College in New York discover that these three factors were a trio for lung cancer mortality, but they also discovered that patients who quit smoking significantly reduced the risk of lung cancer in spite of their long-term asbestos exposure.

Dr. Markowitz stated, “The interactions between asbestos exposure, asbestosis and smoking, and their influence on lung cancer risk are incompletely understood.” He added, “In our study of a large cohort of asbestos-exposed insulators and more than 50,000 non-exposed controls, we found that each individual risk factor was associated with increased risk of developing lung cancer, while the combination of two risk factors further increased the risk, and the combination of all three risk factors increased the risk of developing lung cancer almost 37-fold.”

They published their discoveries online in the American Thoracic Society’s Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Who: They studied 2,377 long-term North American men from the insulation industry and 54,243 “male blue collar workers with no history of exposure to asbestos.”

What: Results were dramatic and sad. On the one hand, Among non-smokers, asbestos exposure increased the rate of dying from lung cancer 5.2-fold. On the other hand, the double whammy of smoking and asbestos exposure “increased the death rate more than 28-fold in smokers.”

Why:  Almost needless to say, the addition of Asbestosis increased the risk of developing lung cancer among asbestos-exposed subjects in both the smoking group and the non-smoking group. However, the death rate from lung cancer increased exponentially 36.8-fold among asbestos-exposed smokers, who also suffered from asbestosis.

Among insulation workers who quit smoking, lung cancer mortality dropped in the 10 years following smoking cessation from 177 deaths per 10,000 among current smokers,  to 90 per 10,000 among those who chose to quit smoking .

Some Good News

The most remarkable and inspiring part of this study was that in the group of insulators who quit smoking, the “lung cancer mortality dropped in the 10 years following smoking cessation.” Statistics revealed a cessation from 177 deaths per 10,000 among current smokers, to 90 per 10,000 among those who quit the smoking habit! Amazing.

“Our study provides strong evidence that asbestos exposure causes lung cancer through multiple mechanisms,” said Dr. Markowitz. “Importantly, we also show that quitting smoking greatly reduces the increased lung cancer risk, seen in this population.

For more in formation about lung cancer, please consult our previous blogs for treatment or for testing of lung cancer.