[PD Test]Asia Pacific Lung Cancer Conference targets tobacco, overlooks air pollution

There was a strong emphasis on the role of tobacco smoking in the development of lung cancer at this year’s Asia Pacific Lung Cancer Conference (APLCC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. However, discussion regarding another key risk factor – outdoor air pollution – was strangely absent from the agenda.

“The ASEAN region has 10 percent of the world’s smokers, with Indonesia making up 51 percent of the distribution in the region, followed by the Philippines with 13.6 percent and Vietnam with 12 percent,” said Dr. Tara Singh Bam, who represents the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) in Indonesia. He noted that here are approximately 127 million adult smokers in the ASEAN alone.

“Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the developed world and quickly becoming so in developing countries. Currently, there are between 5 and 6 million deaths yearly in the world, and this figure is expected to climb to 10 million by around 2025,” said Dr. Carolyn Dresler, associate director for Medical and Health Sciences in the Office of Science at the FDA Center for Tobacco Products Office, US. “If a smoker does not quit, then they have a 50 percent chance of dying from a tobacco-related disease.”

In the Resolution presented at the close of the conference, the first statement highlights that “Tobacco is a key risk factor for lung cancer claiming about 1.6 million lives globally every year.” The Resolution notes that complete implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) is the most effective way forward for prevention of lung cancer, and the APLCC supports full implementation of the WHO FCTC especially in all countries that are party to this treaty. Additionally, the Resolution noted, “Tobacco products should be explicitly excluded from future international, regional and bilateral trade and investment agreements.”

“Air pollution a leading environmental cause of cancer deaths” (WHO, 2013)

In October 2013, the specialized cancer agency of the WHO, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), announced that it had classified outdoor air pollution as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1). This conclusion was reached by leading experts convened by the IARC Monographs Programme who, after thorough review of the latest scientific literature, concluded that there is ‘sufficient evidence’ that exposure to outdoor air pollution causes lung cancer. [Press release no. 221, 17 October 2013, WHO]

Ambient air pollution (AAP) should also not be ignored as a major cause of mortality, says the WHO. In 2012 alone, 3.7 million deaths globally were attributable to AAP, with about 88 percent of these deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries, which represent 82 percent of the world population. [Available at www.who.int/phe/health_topics/outdoorair/databases/AAP_BoD_results_March2014.pdf. Accessed on 12 November 2014]

According to Dr. Kurt Straif, head of the IARC Monographs Section, “The air we breathe has become polluted with a mixture of cancer-causing substances. We now know that outdoor air pollution is not only a major risk to health in general, but also a leading environmental cause of cancer deaths.”