eMedicineLive

According to a report published on Aug. 16, 2011, in the “Journal of the American Medical Association”, cigarette smoking can be attributed as the reason behind almost 50% of bladder cancer cases in women. This proportion is comparable to that in men and is much more than what was thought before. Earlier studies associated cigarette smoking with bladder cancer in women in only 20 to 30% cases. The new ratio may be because of the increased prevalence of smoking in women. Women today, are as likely as men to smoke, as observed in the current study and in the U.S. population overall, according to surveillance by the CDC. The earlier studies were conducted at a time when women did not use to smoke as frequently as today.

 

The researchers of the study used data from over 450,000 participants in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study, a questionnaire based study which was initiated in 1995 and completed in 2006. According to study author Neal Freedman, Ph.D., in NCI’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG), current smokers in the study were four times more likely to  develop bladder cancer, compared to a three times risk in previous studies. This may be because of the changes in smoking habits as well as change in the composition of cigarettes over time. Though the amount of nicotine and tar present in the cigarettes has reduced, there has been an increase in the concentration of other carcinogens which have been associated with bladder cancer.

 

In the recent study, it was seen that former smokers were twice as likely to develop bladder cancer as never smokers, and current smokers were four times more likely than those who never smoked. Cessation of smoking was associated with a reduced risk of cancer. Patients who had quit smoking for ten years had a lower incidence of bladder cancer as compared to those participants who had quit smoking recently or those who continued smoking. The results of the present study should further encourage people, both men and women to quit smoking.

 

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