How smoking sets the stage for lung cancer | Explained

For representative purposes | Photo Credit: Getty Images Oncologists have long wrestled with a conundrum. Healthy human tissue often carries mutations that can drive cancer, but the tissue itself does not develop tumours. Clearly, a genetic spark alone is not enough. At the same time, chronic inflammation from smoking profoundly damages lung tissue long before any definitive cancer-causing mutations even take root.How then does smoking increase the risk of lung cancer? Published - November 03, 2026 07:00 am IST