Lung cancer is no longer mainly a disease of older, longtime smokers, lung specialists said this week. Up to one in five Americans diagnosed with lung cancer have never smoked, speakers said on Sunday, Oct. 18, at CHEST 2026, the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians in Phoenix, according to AJMC's report on the CHEST session.
The concern is practical. National screening advice is built around age and smoking history, so a nonsmoker in her 40s with a cough that will not go away usually has no routine path to a low-dose CT scan. Speakers urged lung specialists to keep lung cancer on the list of possible diagnoses for these patients instead of ruling it out because of age or a clean smoking history.
