Scientists found a rare inherited mutation that dramatically raises lung cancer risk in people who never smoked

The useful part

Lung cancer is so closely associated with smoking that people who have never smoked may assume their risk is extremely low. New research has identified a rare inherited genetic mutation that appears capable of changing that risk dramatically. Among people who had never smoked, carriers had roughly 62 times the lung-cancer risk of people who did not carry the mutation.

How it works

• A much larger dataset finally gave researchers […] The post Scienti...
• The mutation is extremely rare, so this finding does not mean nonsmokers generally face that level of risk.
• What makes the discovery striking is the size of the effect tied to a single inherited genetic change.