Smoking history and survival among lung cancer patients

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Abstract
Two population-based case-control studies of lung cancer were conducred on the Island of Oahu, Hawaii, between 1979 and 1985. Interview information concerning smoking habits and other characteristics was obtained from a total of 463 men and 212 women with histologically confirmed lung cancer. Records from the Hawaii Tumor Registry were revicwed for information on the stage, histology, and follow-up status of these patients. Cigarette smoking was found to be positively related to the age-adjusted risk of death among women (relative risk (RR) -1.6; 95 percent confidence interval (CI)=1.0–2.4), but not among men (RR=0.8; 95 percent CI=0.5–1.2). Among women, the age-adjusted median survival time for never smokers was 33 months (n=53) compared with a median survival of 18 months (n=159) for smokers. Both past and current female smokers were at greater risk of death than never-smokers, and there was a significant trend in the risk of death by the number of cigarettes smoked per day (P=0.04), and the age at which the subjects started smoking (P=0.01). The effects of tumor stage and histology upon the association between tobacco smoking and survival were also explored.