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Genetics Linked to Lung Cancer  

A trio of papers published Wednesday identifies for the first time a specific genetic variation linked to increased risk of lung cancer, but the studies disagree about whether the risk is elevated because the gene variant increases smoking behavior or addiction to nicotine.

The studies, conducted by three independent research groups and published in the journals Nature and Nature Genetics, all found that increased lung-cancer risk was associated with a gene variant on chromosome 15. The variant increased the risk by as much as 80% among smokers who had two copies of the variation and by about 30% if they had one copy. However, smoking far outweighs a genetic predisposition in developing lung cancer, say the researchers.

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