Document 2jqOj9BZqbgxOa8M6ajDdOwJN
176 FEB., 1954 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
Table 6--Estimated Prevalence Rates * of Lung Cancer per 100,000 Males of Selected Ages and Various Cigarette Smoking Habits
Number
Estimated Prevalence Rates Quantity Smoked Daily t
Lung Cancer
Control
All Quan Heavy * * tities
None
Relative Prevalence t
Heavy
All Quan tities
Patients aged 50-59 years
1. Doll and Hill
276 275 94 42
7 13
6
2. Wynder and Graham 258 210 117
47
4 27 11
3. Sadowsky, Gilliam,
and Cornfield
198 208 87 44 12
7
4
4. Present
213 213 102
46
6 17
7
Patients aged 60-69 years
1. Doll and Hill
197 199 137
63
0 .,
,,
2. Wynder and Graham 187 160 138
70
5 29 15
3. Sadowsky, Gilliam,
and Cornfield
76 71 44 71 5 9 4
4. Present
168 169 433 78 17 25
5
* Estimated according to the method of Cornfield.11 Data for studies of Doll and Hill; Wynder and Graham; aod Sadowsky, Gilliam, and Cornfield from the latter paper.13
f Quantity smoked daily, except for present study, is all forms of smoking expressed as cigarettes, with pipes and cigars converted to their equivalents in cigarettes as follows: 1. Doll and Hill--1 os. of tobacco a week =: 4 cigarettes a day; 2. Wynder and Graham--1 cigar -- 5 cigarettes, 1 pipeful = 2% cigarettes; and 3. Sadoweky, Gilliam, and Cornfield---1 cigar = 10 cigarettes, 1 oz. pipo tobacco -- 20 cigArettes. 4. For present study, quantity smoked daily includes only cigarette smoking.
+ Relative prevalence is the.ratio: Heavy--rata among heavy smokers/rate among nonsmokera; all quantities--rats among 6niokera/rste among nonsmokers.
** Heavy smoking is defined as the following number of cigarettes or equivalents of cigarettes per day:--1. Doll and Hill--50 or more; 2. Wynder and Graham--35 or more; 3. Sadowsky, Gilliam, and Cornfield--41 or more; and 4. present study--40 or more.
of these criteria, the lung cancer pa tients smoked cigarettes to a greater ex tent than did the control group. Also, approximately two-fifths of the lung cancer patients stated that they had had a "cigarette cough" usually antedating the onset of their illness by many years; 120 said that they had had a cough for five years or more. The frequency of such "cigarette cough" was only about one-half as great among the control group and only 39 of the control pa tients indicated that their cough had lasted five years or more.
Significance of Findings on Cigarette Smoking
The data clearly show cigarette smok ing to be more frequent and intense among lung cancer patients than among
the control group. Our data parallel that of other recent, well controlled studies; all indicate a positive correla tion between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, a correlation which increases steadily with the amount of cigarette smoking. One can hardly escape the conclusion of Doll and Hill4 that "smoking is a factor and an important factor in the production of carcinoma of the lung," and the more recent con clusion of Doll,10 "The results amount, I believe, to proof that smoking is a cause of bronchial carcinoma."
The cigarette smoker or prospective cigarette smoker may wish to know how much his chances of developing lung cancer are increased by such smoking. Acknowledging that a correlation exists, one may still inquire how many times does cigarette smoking increase the