Lung Cancers in Never-Smokers: A Different Disease?
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Narrative review without systematic methodology or primary human data synthesis
PubMed 41110872 · doi:10.1016/j.soc.2025.05.001
What was done
Narrative review synthesizing current understanding of the epidemiology, risk factors, tumor biology, and therapeutic approaches for lung cancer in never-smokers.
What was found
The abstract reports no quantitative data, effect sizes, or numerical comparisons. Qualitatively, it reports that lung cancer in never-smokers is predominantly adenocarcinoma, disproportionately affects women, is frequently driven by actionable mutations like EGFR, and typically responds poorly to immunotherapy while benefiting significantly from targeted therapies.
Why it matters
It emphasizes that lung cancer in never-smokers constitutes a distinct clinical entity where routine molecular profiling is essential to guide effective targeted therapy over immunotherapy.
Limits
This is a narrative review with no primary data, sample sizes, systematic review methodology, or quantitative risk estimates reported in the abstract.
Cited by
- supports Adenocarcinoma is the dominant type of lung cancer in non-smokers.