The Effect of Smoking on the Morphology of Lung Cancer

Abstract

Smoking as a cause of cancer development has been the subject of research by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) [^{1, 2}]. The highest rates are for lung (up to 90% of cases), oral cavity (92%) and larynx (87%) cases [³]. Smoking is one of the most important causes in the etiology of lung cancer [^{3, 4}].

The purpose of the study was to determine whether smoking had an effect on the morphological type of lung cancer. One hundred and fifty patients with histologically proven lung cancer by gender, age, smoking experience, and morphology of lung cancer were studied.

The number of men is twice that of women; the highest number of patients is between 40 and 60 years of age. 76.6% of patients are active smokers, 88.6% of them have used cigarettes for more than 10 years, and 59% have smoked more than 20 cigarettes daily. Of the nonsmoking patients, 48.6% are passive smokers.

The distribution by morphological type of lung cancer in smokers indicates that the ratio of squamous type of cancer (59%) is the highest, followed by adenocarcinoma (29.5%), and small cellular cancer (11.3%).