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Pope Leo XIV’s lung cancer highlights growing number of nonsmokers diagnosed with the disease – and younger people too

<name>Estelamari Rodriguez, Associate Director of Community Outreach in Thoracic Oncology, University of Miami</name> <foaf:homepage rdf:resource="https://theconversation.com/profiles/estelamari-rodriguez-1391178"/>· 14 octobre 2026

Pope Leo XIV had his lung nodule surgically removed. AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard When many people think of an average lung cancer patient, they often imagine an older man smoking . But the face of lung cancer has changed. Over the past 15 years, more women, never smokers and younger people are bein…

Résumé

Lung cancer trends

Lung cancer is no longer just a disease of older men who smoke.

Over the past 15 years, the disease has increasingly affected women, people who have never smoked, and younger individuals.

For example, lung cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death among women, surpassing deaths from breast, ovarian, and colorectal cancer combined.

While lung cancer rates have decreased by 43% for men over the last 44 years, they have risen by 79% for women during the same period.

Notably, for the first time, more young women than men are being diagnosed with lung cancer.

The diagnosis of Pope Leo XIV, a nonsmoker, has drawn attention to this shift in the disease's profile.

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