Why Is Lung Cancer Surging among Young Women?

为什么肺癌在年轻女性中激增?

Science Quickly

2025-10-15

16 分钟
PDF

单集简介 ...

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among U.S. women, surpassing breast and ovarian cancer combined. Thoracic surgeon Jonathan Villena explains why younger nonsmoking women are increasingly affected—and how early screening could save lives. Recommended Reading Most People at Risk for Lung Cancer Never Get Screened: Here’s How to Fix That Jonathan Villena’s profile at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura and Kylie Murphy. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check the show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
更多

单集文稿 ...

  • For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feldman.

  • Lung cancer is the deadliest cancer among women in the United States,

  • surpassing the mortality numbers of breast and ovarian cancer combined.

  • And surprisingly,

  • younger women who have never smoked are increasingly being diagnosed with the disease.

  • Here to explain what could be driving this trend and why early screening can make all the difference is Jonathan Vienna,

  • a thoracic surgeon at New York Presbyterian and Wild Cornell.

  • Thank you so much for joining us.

  • Thank you for having me.

  • So our viewers and listeners might be surprised to hear that lung cancer and women now tops breast cancer,

  • ovarian cancer combined.

  • Can you tell us more about what's going on there?

  • Yeah, definitely so.

  • In general, lung cancer is the number one cancer affecting people in the United States,

  • both men and women.

  • If you look at the American Cancer Society,

  • around 226,000 new cases of lung cancer are projected to be diagnosed in 2025.

  • Of those, about 50% are cancer-related deaths,

  • meaning 120,000 people die every year from lung cancer.

  • Now, what's...