Over 50% of Asian American women who have lung cancer have never smoked. For Chinese and Indian American women who have lung cancer, that number shoots to 80% to 90%.
Now, doctors are raising the alarm about increasing numbers of lung cancer cases in this community and working to reform the screening guidelines to better include Asian American women.
To date, studies of female nonsmokers in Asia have identified risk factors such as cooking oil fumes, secondhand smoke, air pollution and indoor heating with coal, but no research has focused on Asian American women, Gomez said.
Although the two groups are matched in terms of ethnicity and age, the researchers hope to find some differences in genetics, as assessed by saliva samples, and environmental exposure, determined through surveys asking about people’s pasts.
But Palaniappan also cautioned that better inclusion of Asian American women in the screening guidelines is still a long way off, with many more studies needed to confirm and build on Shum’s findings.
For scientists who want to disrupt that narrative, it can be incredibly difficult, because only 0.17% of the National Institutes of Health budget over 26 years was devoted to research on AANHPI.
In many ways, it’s not surprising that Cheng, Gomez and Shum — three Asian American women — are leading the first-of-a-kind studies, because who else would be motivated enough to jump through all the hoops and push through the skepticism?
The original article contains 1,614 words, the summary contains 207 words. Saved 87%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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Now, doctors are raising the alarm about increasing numbers of lung cancer cases in this community and working to reform the screening guidelines to better include Asian American women.
To date, studies of female nonsmokers in Asia have identified risk factors such as cooking oil fumes, secondhand smoke, air pollution and indoor heating with coal, but no research has focused on Asian American women, Gomez said.
Although the two groups are matched in terms of ethnicity and age, the researchers hope to find some differences in genetics, as assessed by saliva samples, and environmental exposure, determined through surveys asking about people’s pasts.
But Palaniappan also cautioned that better inclusion of Asian American women in the screening guidelines is still a long way off, with many more studies needed to confirm and build on Shum’s findings.
For scientists who want to disrupt that narrative, it can be incredibly difficult, because only 0.17% of the National Institutes of Health budget over 26 years was devoted to research on AANHPI.
In many ways, it’s not surprising that Cheng, Gomez and Shum — three Asian American women — are leading the first-of-a-kind studies, because who else would be motivated enough to jump through all the hoops and push through the skepticism?
The original article contains 1,614 words, the summary contains 207 words. Saved 87%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!