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Research Square

Model projects delayed peak in pollution-linked lung cancer deaths

The global model projected deaths would peak in 2035–2045, after the pollution marker peaked in 2010–2015, despite projected pollution declines.

Paper by Bin Wang, Xiangtao Zhang, Le Zhang, +12 more authorsYuanchen Chen · Peking University · Zhejiang University of Technology

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Populations
Studied:
Preprint: computational study
In the record:
The 14th paper on ambient air pollution with results in people; 27 on record in all.

Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News

Paper
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The global population’s lung cancer burden from outdoor air pollution was estimated in a computational model that included population age structure and the delay between exposure and cancer. The researchers reconstructed worldwide levels of benzo[a]pyrene, used as a marker of cancer-causing pollution mixtures, from 1850 to 2100.

The marker’s levels rose approximately fivefold to a peak in 2010–2015. Future pollution-control scenarios projected declines of 50–80% by 2050. Yet the model projected pollution-linked lung cancer deaths would peak in 2035–2045. Accounting for cancer’s delay and population age structure also reduced the estimated share of lung cancer attributed to pollution by 40–70%, compared with conventional assumptions of steady conditions.

Why it matters

The model addresses how past pollution exposure and population age structure shape lung cancer burden over time. The authors call for prevention that considers exposure legacies alongside future emission controls.

Caveats

These estimates depend on reconstructed exposures and a model that uses one pollutant to represent cancer-causing air pollution mixtures. The Research Square preprint has not been peer-reviewed.

Where the evidence stands

Benzo[a]pyrene

Cells and mice: replicated by independent labs. Humans: a single group. Worms or flies: nothing yet.

C, W, M, H: cells, worms or flies, mice, humans. Dark: independent labs found the same change there. Light: one lab or one study. Outline: nothing yet.

Labs are independent when their papers share no last author and no institution.

Against: findings that point the other way from most findings on the same outcome.

Company ties: findings with an author at a company, or from a paper whose competing-interests statement declares ties to one.

  • 12 independent labs in 6 countries
  • 1 finding against
  • Funders: National Natural Science Foundation of China and others
  • 1 of 29 findings with company ties

Ambient air pollution

Humans: a single group. Cells, worms or flies and mice: nothing yet.

C, W, M, H: cells, worms or flies, mice, humans. Dark: independent labs found the same change there. Light: one lab or one study. Outline: nothing yet.

Labs are independent when their papers share no last author and no institution.

  • 13 independent labs in 6 countries
  • Funders: National Natural Science Foundation of China and others

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