Tobacco-Tied Cancer Cases Top 2 Million

Pancreatic Cancer Slideshow

More Than 2 Million Cases of Tobacco-Related Cancers Diagnosed in U.S. From 1999 to 2004, Says CDC

By Miranda Hitti
WebMD Health News

Reviewed By Louise Chang, MD

Sept. 4, 2008 — About 2.4 million cases of tobacco-related cancers were diagnosed in the U.S. from 1999 to 2004, the CDC announced today.

Lung cancer and bronchial cancer accounted for about half of those diagnoses, according to what the CDC calls its "most comprehensive assessment to date" of tobacco-related cancer diagnoses.

"Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of disease and premature death in the United States and the most prominent cause of cancer," Matthew McKenna, MD, MPH, director of the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health, says in a news release.

"The tobacco-use epidemic causes a third of the cancers in America," he adds.

The CDC's report focuses on lung and bronchial cancer, oral cavity cancer, urinary bladder cancer, acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), and cancers of the larynx, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, cervix, pancreas, and kidney.

Tobacco-related cancer diagnoses were most common among men, African-American and non-Hispanic populations, and people at least 70 years old. Geographically, lung and laryngeal cancer diagnoses were most common in the South. Kentucky had the highest rate. The West had the lowest incidence rates of all cancers except stomach cancer.

The numbers, published in a special edition of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, have some limits. The data don't show how many of the patients who had tobacco-related cancers actually were tobacco users; those cancers aren't always caused by tobacco.

SOURCES: FDA, letter to Bayer Pharmaceuticals. Louis R. Caplan, MD, professor of neurology, Harvard Medical School; chief, cerebrovascular/stroke division, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston. Mark C. Bennett, spokesman, Bayer Pharmaceuticals. Savitz, A. Neurology, Sept. 10, 2002; vol 59: p 778. Schiefer, J. International Journal of Impotence Research, July/August 2005; vol 17: pp 383-384. FDA, statement emailed to WebMD. Jennifer Jacob, Pfizer. Stephanie Kenney-Andrzejewski, senior vice president, MS&L Global Health.

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