Fatal breast cancer and smoking.Although women who smoke face a slew of health problems, breast cancer was not thought to be on the list. Yet a new study suggests that women who smoke face a heightened risk of dying from breast cancer, compared to women who don't smoke. Epidemiologist Eugenia E. Calle and her colleagues at the Atlanta-based American Cancer Society American Cancer Society, n.pr established in 1913, this national volunteer-based health organization is committed to the elimination of cancer through prevention and treatment and to diminishing cancer suffering through advocacy, scholarship, research, tracked 604,412 women who were cancerfree at the time of their enrollment in the study in 1982. During the course of the 6-year investigation, 880 women died from breast cancer. A statistical analysis revealed that, compared to nonsmokers, women who smoked at the time of enrollment ran a 25 percent greater chance of dying from breast cancer. That risk rose with the number of cigarettes used daily. For example, a woman who smoked between 20 and 29 cigarettes per day faced a 32 percent higher risk. A woman who smoked more than 40 cigarettes per day had a 75 percent greater likelihood of dying of breast cancer, the team reported in the May 15 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY. The researchers did not find an increased risk of fatal breast cancer among women who had stopped smoking before the study started. Although the findings suggest that women smokers are more likely than nonsmokers to die from breast cancer, they do not prove that cigarette use is directly to blame. Calle points out that women who smoke seem to shun Shun In Chinese mythology, one of the three legendary emperors, along with Yao and Da Yu, of the golden age of antiquity (c. 23rd century BC), singled out by Confucius as models of integrity and virtue. regular mammograms, an X-ray technique that can find early-stage breast tumors. It may be that smokers develop breast cancer at the same rate as nonsmokers but are more likely to obtain a diagnosis at a later, and thus more advanced, stage of the disease, she says. On the other hand, smoking is known to impair the immune system immune system Cells, cell products, organs, and structures of the body involved in the detection and destruction of foreign invaders, such as bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells. Immunity is based on the system's ability to launch a defense against such invaders. . Therefore, smokers with a breast tumor tumor: see neoplasm. may be less able to fight off the malignancy malignancy: see cancer. . Unfettered by the immune system, the malignancy grows faster, Calle says. "Women who continue to smoke should be considered a potentially high-risk group high-risk group Epidemiology A group of people in the community with a higher-than-expected risk for developing a particular disease, which may be defined on a measurable parameter–eg, an inherited genetic defect, physical attribute, lifestyle, habit, for whom mammography mammography, diagnostic procedure that uses low-dose X rays to detect abnormalities in the breasts. The early diagnosis of breast cancer made possible by the routine use of mammography for screening women increases a woman's treatment alternatives and improves her education and early detection may be particularly valuable," the authors say. |
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