Lung cancer is increasingly striking people who fall outside the usual screening spectrum. Around the world, fit individuals with no heavy smoking history find themselves facing a disease long linked primarily to cigarette smoke.
The latest reminder of this shift came from Thailand, where a teenage Muay Thai fighter lost his life far too soon. Fifteen-year-old Prasertchai P. Prakitgym, from Sisaket province, died of lung cancer in this month. Bangkok Muay Thai promoter, New Power Group, announced the news and remembered him as a fighter everyone loved.
Before falling ill he built a strong run of wins. He scored a fourth-round knockout in the 43 kilogram division in July of 2025, then took points victories in August and November that year. Doctors diagnosed the disease shortly after his last bout, and he began treatment in early 2026.
His friends and family say he fought the illness with the same courage he showed in the ring until the end. How a young, active athlete developed such a serious disease remains unclear. No official cause has been confirmed.
Thailand’s air quality offers one possible factor. The country has struggled for years with fine particles from traffic, older vehicles, construction, factories and seasonal crop burning. These particles reach levels that can harm the lungs over time. Second-hand smoke and exposure to household or workplace chemicals also raise risk in general, yet nothing links them specifically to this case. Any discussion of causes at present stays in the realm of speculation.
“Even though his body has left us today, every drop of sweat, every fight he ever fought and every memory he left in the Thai boxing industry will remain in our hearts forever,” said New Power Group on Aug. 21.
Prakitgym. Photo credit: New Power Group
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Rising cases beyond the usual groups
This teenager’s death fits a wider pattern. Recent NIH research has shown that roughly one in four lung cancer cases worldwide now appears in people who have never smoked. This statistic has also been affirmed by peer-reviewed journals like JAMA and Lancet Respiratory Medicine.
In the United States alone, doctors diagnose between 20,000 and 40,000 never-smokers with the disease each year. Among these non-smoker cases, women account for about two-thirds. Rates among never-smoking women have climbed steadily even as overall smoking rates fall, and the pattern appears especially clear in several Asian populations where the proportion of never-smoker lung cancers often exceeds half of all diagnoses in women.
Younger adults also feature more prominently in the non-smoker group than among those with a smoking history. The disease itself behaves unpredictably. Plenty of heavy smokers live into old age without it, while young people who never touched a cigarette can develop it and die early. This unpredictability shows why the world needs cheaper and more convenient screening that more people can reach.
Current screening limits and emerging options
Screening rules usually cover only adults in their later years who have smoked heavily for a long time. The main tool, a low-dose CT scan, carries high costs. Hospitals face shortages of trained staff. The scans also expose people to radiation and can produce false alarms that lead to further unnecessary tests and procedures.
Although this scan remains the best current method, its drawbacks are clear. Better tools that cost less, avoid radiation and prove easy to use would help catch the disease earlier in younger people and never-smokers.
Thankfully, certain companies are advancing such options. Breath Diagnostics has developed OneBreath, a system that analyses a single breath sample with the help of mass spectrometry and machine learning algorithms. It has shown strong accuracy in trials involving hundreds of patients.
Another, bioAffinity Technologies Inc (NASDAQ: BIAF), offers CyPath Lung — a test that examines sputum/phlegm. The company recently reported sharp growth in testing volume and sales and its test is already available as a lab-developed product. Although it carries a higher upfront price, studies indicate it can lower longer-term costs by cutting unnecessary follow-up procedures. Other groups are also producing effective blood and urine tests that detect early signs of the disease.
Leading doctors have urged wider screening criteria. American Lung Cancer Screening Initiative founder Chi-Fu Jeffrey Yang and thoracic surgery professor Ankit Bharat both argue that current rules miss too many cases, especially among women and never-smokers.
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