Asbestos May Be Fueling China’s Rising Lung Cancer Rates, Review Finds

Lung cancer incidence in China continues to rise even as smoking prevalence falls and ambient air quality improves, and a new review argues that a familiar but underappreciated carcinogen may help explain the gap: asbestos. The paper, published in the journal Environmental Health, examines why asbestos-related lung cancer remains systematically underestimated in China despite the country’s continued use of chrysotile asbestos and the widespread presence of legacy asbestos-containing materials in buildings and infrastructure.

The review, authored by a team including Qiulin Huang, Wei Gu and Tianhui Chen, is a synthesis of existing evidence rather than a new epidemiological study. Its central argument is that asbestos is a well-established cause of lung cancer, yet its contribution to China’s disease burden has received limited attention from researchers and policymakers alike.

According to the authors, several factors combine to obscure the true scale of the problem. Asbestos-related lung cancer often presents clinically in ways that are indistinguishable from other lung cancers, and exposure histories are frequently incomplete or undocumented. Surveillance systems, the review notes, have limitations that further contribute to undercounting cases attributable to asbestos.

The paper also emphasizes that exposure pathways extend well beyond the traditionally defined category of asbestos workers.

As a long-term strategy, the authors call for a comprehensive asbestos ban in China, framing it as an important measure to reduce the future burden of asbestos-related disease. They position the finding within a broader puzzle: with smoking declining and air quality improving, other risk factors must be identified to account for the continued rise in lung cancer incidence.

The review is published as an open-access article and, as an early-release version, is subject to further editorial edits before the final version of record appears. Its conclusions are drawn from the published literature rather than new cohort data, and the authors present asbestos exposure as a potential driver of the observed trend rather than a definitively quantified cause.

Subject of Research: Asbestos exposure as an underrecognized contributor to lung cancer incidence in China

Article Title: Asbestos exposure: a potential driver of rising lung cancer incidence in China

Article References: Huang, Q., Gu, W., Chen, Z., Lei, R., Fu, J., Xu, C., Chen, X., Hemminki, K., Wu, L., & Chen, T. (2026). Asbestos exposure: a potential driver of rising lung cancer incidence in China. Environmental Health. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-026-01347-y

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12940-026-01347-y

Keywords: asbestos, lung cancer, China, chrysotile, occupational exposure, environmental exposure, carcinogen, public health, asbestos ban, Environmental Health, exposure, potential