Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and risk of lung cancer in non-smoking women from Moscow, Russia

Abstract

The association between exposure to ETS and the risk of lung cancer in life‐time non‐smoking women was investigated by means of a hospital based case‐control study in Moscow, Russia. The main importance of our study is that it was conducted on a population with a specific smoking pattern from which no information is available on health effects of ETS. A total of 189 incident cases of histologically confirmed lung cancer were identified in 2 principal cancer treatment hospitals in Moscow. A total of 358 female oncology patients from the same hospitals were selected as controls. The controls matched by the hospitals to the cases were similarly restricted to never‐smokers. Women diagnosed with cancer of the upper respiratory organs were ineligible for selection as controls. Personal interviews of cases and controls were conducted in the hospital wards, using a closed‐form structured questionnaire. An elevated risk of lung cancer was observed in women whose husbands smoked. The odds ratio (OR) adjusted by age and education for husband's smoking was 1.53 (95% CI, 1.06–2.21). Smoking by other members of the family, by colleague's, or by fathers in the women's childhood do not affect the risk of lung cancer. The risk is higher for women whose husbands smoke “papirosy” (OR 2.12; 95% CI, 1.32–3.40), a special Russian type of cigarettes with a long mouthpiece, and usually very high levels of tar (>30 mg/cig) and nicotine (>1.8 mg/cig). Our study suggests that the association between exposure to ETS of the spouse and risk of lung cancer in non‐smoking women is somewhat stronger for squamous‐cell carcinoma (OR, 1.94; 95% CI, 0.99–3.81) than for adenocarcinoma (OR, 1.52; 95% CI, 0.96–2.39). Int. J. Cancer 75:335–338, 1998. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

Passive smoking and lung cancer in Japanese non‐smoking women: A prospective study

“…This result is supported by the findings of the IARC 8 and many previous papers, 10,11,13,18,[21][22][23]25,26,34 and accords with a summary risk of 1.24 obtained in a meta-analysis. 9 Because adenocarcinoma is the predominant lung cancer type in non-smoking women, 17,[42][43][44] and so the effects of passive smoking may be particularly relevant to it, we also carried out analyses by histological type.…”

“…Previous papers have reported a hazard ratio of 1.0-1.6 in adenocarcinoma, ratios smaller than those for other cell types. 22,23,26,[30][31][32][33]36 Only Fontham et al similarly reported that passive smoking from the husband increases the risk of adenocarcinoma. 21 Nevertheless, our findings might be supported by findings on the mechanism of passage of sidestream smoke components through the nasal passages, which showed that volatile sidestream smoke constituents would be more likely to reach the peripheral Women exposed at the workplace less than one time per week.-2 Women exposed at the workplace one or more times per week.-3 Women exposed from husbands who are former or current smokers.…”

Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and risk of adenocarcinoma of the lung

“…Significant (or borderline significant) increases in risk, with relative risks in the order of 1.3-2.1, have been reported in studies from the USA (Garfinkel et al, 1985;Fontham et al, 1994), Greece (Kalandidi et al, 1990), Russia (Zaridze et al, 1998) and Hong Kong (Lam et al, 1987). A similar increase in risk, albeit not significant, has been reported by Stockwell et al (1992) and Brownson et al (1987) in the USA and by Koo et al (1987) in Hong Kong.…”

“…Stockwell et al (1992) reported a modest, non-significant increase in the risk of adenocarcinoma following exposure to ETS from the mother but not from the father. The results of the remaining studies (Fontham et al, 1994;Zaridze et al, 1998) are consistently negative, no matter which indicator of childhood ETS exposure was used (either parent or both parents being smokers, number of smoker-years, etc.). In the Swedish study, subjects with at least 1 smoking parent had an OR of 0.5 (95% CI 0.1-1.9) of lung cancers other than squamous-and small-cell carcinoma (Pershagen et al, 1987).…”

“…In most of the studies reporting results on different histological types of lung cancer and ETS exposure, the increase in risk of adenocarcinoma was smaller than that of squamous-or small-cell carcinomas (Akiba et al, 1986;Brownson et al, 1987;Gao et al, 1987;Pershagen et al, 1987;Stockwell et al, 1992;Fontham et al, 1994;Boffetta et al, 1998;Zaridze et al, 1998). In 2 studies from Hong Kong (Koo et al, 1987;Lam et al, 1987), 1 from the USA (Garfinkel et al, 1985) and 1 from Greece (Kalandidi et al, 1990), however, the risk of adenocarcinoma was equal to or higher than that of other histological types.…”