Tobacco smoke causes lung inflammation, promotes lung cancer growth
Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - 14:42
in Health & Medicine
Repeated exposure to tobacco smoke makes lung cancer much worse, and one reason is that it steps up inflammation in the lung. Scientists have found that mice with early lung cancer lesions that were repeatedly exposed to tobacco smoke developed larger tumors -- and developed tumors more quickly -- than unexposed animals. The key contributing factor was lung tissue inflammation.