Women’s Lung Cancer Risk May Be Boosted By Reproductive Factors

(CTN News) – A study says early menopause, shortened reproductive spans, and young births are linked to lung cancer.

It has been shown in the ongoing International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer 2023 World Conference on Lung Cancer in Singapore that these reproductive factors are significantly more closely associated with cancer risk, specifically non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in populations with genetic susceptibility to the disease and detrimental behaviors associated with it, as part of the ongoing conference.

The most common cause of cancer death for both men and women in the world is cancer. The most prevalent form of lung cancer, the non-small cell cancer, affects about 85 percent of the patients who are diagnosed with it.

As the study’s lead researcher, Dr. Y. Zhang from Xiangya Hospital, Central South University in China, stated to Reuters in an interview, “These findings are of paramount importance in our understanding of the potential risk factors for cancer among women.”.

Zhang added that menarche and menopause early in life, as well as a shorter reproductive life span, are all associated with greater risks of cancer, especially NSCLC, in subpopulations with specific genetic risks and lifestyle choices.

During this study, the researchers conducted a prospective cohort study with 273,190 participants from the UK Biobank to investigate whether there is a link between individual reproductive factors and the risk of developing lung cancer as part of the study.

In this study, we sought to identify potential risk factors as well as further analyze their effects on specific subgroups, including age, smoking status, body mass index (BMI), genetic factors, and histological subtypes.

It is estimated that 1,182 lung cancer cases were diagnosed in women during a median follow-up period of 12.0 years in the cohort study.

The study showed that the reproductive factors such as early menarche (age before 11 years), early menopause (age before 46 years or age before 47-49 years), a shorter reproductive span (age before 32 years or age of 33-35 years), and a younger age at first birth (age before 20 years or age of 21-25 years) increased the risk that women would develop lung cancer.

It is important to highlight that this pioneering research emphasizes the importance of screening multiple reproductive factors in order to identify potential lung cancer risk among female populations at risk.

It is important to understand these associations in order for healthcare professionals to come up with targeted preventive strategies and interventions to combat lung cancer in a more effective manner, according to Dr Zhang.

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