Tobacco Documents Online

LUNG CANCER AND TOBACCO SMOKE EXPOSURE IN WEST SWEDEN Rylander, R.; Anderson, L.; Bergman, B.; Liljeqvist, T.; Axelsson, G. Department of Environmental Medicine University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden A case-control study in the west of Sweden investigated the relationship between lung cancer and environmental factors. Suspected lung cancer cases were collected from two chest clinics and population controls were taken from the same study base, selecting for age and sex. The participants were interviewed using a questionnaire to assess smoking, diet habits, occupational exposures and local air pollution. This report describes the results from the analysis of tobacco smoke exposure and lung cancer, using 305 male and 141 female cases with 504 and 293 controls, respectively. For both sexes, an increase in lung cancer risk was found for an increased consumption of cigarettes, expressed as years and number of cigarettes smoked. Among those with a daily consumption less than 10 cigarettes/day and a smoking period of less than 20 years, the increase in risk was small for both sexes and non- significant for males. Non-smoking females exposed to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) in their homes had significantly lower consumption of vegetables and fruit but a higher consumption of salted fish, grilled meat and fried potatoes. The results confirm the dose-response relationship for smoking and lung cancer but not at lower exposure levels. Dietary habits

have been identified as risks or protective factors in other studies and in parallel analysis of this material. It is important to further investigate to which extent these factors can act as modulators in situations with a low exposure to smoking as well as ETS exposure.