Hospital denies reports linking cancer case to pollution_美文

Hospital denies reports linking cancer case to pollution

Download

A cancer hospital in Jiangsu province has denied media reports that an 8-year-old girl became China's youngest lung cancer patient due to air pollution.

After checking its patient database, Jiangsu Cancer Hospital said the youngest lung cancer patient there was a 10-year-old girl in November 2006. The girl recovered after surgery.

The girl had been coughing for more than two months, and doctors found a tumor in her right lung, according to the case record provided by the hospital.

The cause of her lung cancer could not be determined because it was complicated to identify, the hospital wrote in an e-mail to China Daily.

This month, China News Service reported that the hospital had recently taken in an 8-year-old lung cancer patient and, citing a doctor named Feng Dongjie at the hospital, the article suggested that smog could be the direct cause of the disease.

The news received wide media attention, with news reports saying in the past week that worsening air pollution was linked to the illness of China's youngest lung cancer patient.

Feng, the doctor, said in an e-mail: "Many factors contribute to lung cancer, such as smoking, ionizing radiation, genetic factors and air pollution. Over-fatigue and staying up all night also contribute.

"It's true that air pollution can harm human health, but to what extent is still being researched. Lung cancer is a disease that can be caused by multiple factors, so we cannot draw a conclusion that tiny particles in the air are the direct reason for the disease."