Passive smoking also promotes cancer

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MunichWhen you think of lung cancer, you first think of smoking. In the process, non-smokers can also develop bronchial carcinoma. Often it is the blue haze from others that causes the lung cells to degenerate. The most aggressive form of lung cancer in particular often affects passive smokers.

Lung cancer from secondhand smoke

Anyone who unintentionally has to inhale other people's cigarette smoke has a significantly higher risk of developing lung cancer. This was calculated by US researchers who evaluated data from 18 studies in a survey. Almost 12,700 lung cancer patients and 14,500 healthy control persons were included in the so-called meta-study.

Overall, the lung cancer risk for passive smokers was 31 percent higher than for those non-smokers who did not have to inhale external smoke. However, the second-hand smoke increases the risk of different types of lung cancer to different degrees. The probability of developing particularly aggressive small-cell lung cancer was three times as high (plus 210 percent) when people were passively exposed to tobacco smoke. For other forms of lung cancer, the risk did not climb quite as strongly: for adenocarcinomas by 26 percent, for squamous cell carcinomas by 41 percent and for large-cell tumors by 48 percent.

Underestimated danger

Passive smoking is very harmful to health. According to the German Cancer Research Center, more than 3,000 people die every year in Germany because they have to passively breathe tobacco smoke. In addition to lung cancer, cardiovascular diseases are also among the causes of death from passive smoking. (cf)

Source: Kim, C. H wt al: Exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke and lung cancer by histological type: A pooled analysis of the International Lung Cancer Consortium (ILCCO). Int. J. Cancer. doi: 10.1002 / ijc.2883, Article first published online: 25 MAR 2014

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