Not lung cancer per se; the paper focuses only on reversal of tumor mutation burden of the cells that line the lungs and airways. Alas the popular press summar

Not lung cancer per se; the paper focuses only on reversal of tumor mutation burden of the cells that line the lungs and airways. Alas the popular press summary implies concomittant reversal the carcinogenic damage of smoking -- which 60+ years of clinical experience refutes, and the research paper itself also refines: " The higher risk of lung cancer in ex-smokers compared with non-smokers is reflected in their high mutation burden and the signature of smoking-associated mutations in most of their lung cells (similar to the cellular profile of current smokers). Although ex-smokers have a high risk of developing lung cancer, their risk is reduced compared with that of current smokers, and this lowering depends on the length of time of smoking cessation1. Why this is the case has been hard to explain. However, perhaps the most surprising result of Yoshida and colleagues’ work might offer a clue: in 5 out of 6 ex-smokers, 20–50% of the cells had a low mutation burden that was similar to the profile of non-smokers of the same age range. "