COPD is an Independent Risk Factor for Cancer
After adjusting for smoking chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic bronchitis and emphysema were associated with a doubling of the risk for lung cancer in this just published paper. It's part of the ongoing Environment and Genetics in Lung Cancer Etiology (EAGLE) study.
Noting that a family history of chronic bronchitis and emphysema alone have been associated with lung cancer, that COPD has been associated with lung cancer in never-smokers and that COPD is thought to be responsible for 10% of all lung cancers, the authors concluded that these findings support the hypothesis that COPD alone causes lung cancer and they further conjectured that chronic inflammation is the essential mechanism in COPD/emphysema-induced lung cancer.
