• Posted June 2, 2025

Wildfire Smoke Dents Survival Odds For Lung Cancer Patients

Wildfire smoke could make it harder for people with lung cancer to survive, a new study says.

Californians with lung cancer who breathed smoke from wildfires had a 20% increased risk of dying from their cancer, researchers reported Saturday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s (ASCO) annual meeting in Chicago.

Wildfire smoke contains particle pollution that can get deep into the lungs, noted researcher Dr. Surbhi Singhal, an assistant professor of oncology at the University of California-Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center.

“The research tells us that there are small particles in the air that could make lung cancer worse,” Singhal said in an ASCO news release.

Researchers tracked more than 18,000 Californians with the most common kind of lung cancer — non-small cell lung cancer — between 2017 and 2020. 

They estimated people’s exposure to wildfire smoke using air quality monitoring based on their home address.

Results showed that people with advanced stage 4 cancer who’d never smoked were most affected by wildfire air pollution. Their risk of dying from cancer rose 55% if they were exposed to lots of wildfire smoke.

"As wildfires become more frequent and intense in California and other parts of the U.S., we need targeted health strategies to protect cancer patients and others with serious health problems,” Singhal said. “These results highlight the urgent need to protect vulnerable populations living in wildfire-prone regions.”

Interestingly, stage 4 lung cancer patients with a history of smoking who were being treated with immunotherapy actually experienced better survival rates during days of extremely high particle pollution levels from wildfires, researchers found.

They said this suggests that smoke-related changes in the body might interact with certain treatments, and should be studied further.

Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on the health effects of wildfire smoke.

SOURCE: University of California-Davis, news release, May 31, 2025