A study has reported that peoples who smoking face an elevated risk of stomach and throat cancers, even years after they quit smoking. The risk of esophagus cancer stills high even when people had quit smoking three decades earlier.
Dr. Eva Negri, a senior researcher of the “Mario Negri” Institute of Pharmacological Research in Milan, said: “Smoking has long been considered a risk factor for stomach and throat cancers. But these latest findings offer a “better quantification” of the risks.” What’s more, they suggest that the risks remain higher than average for some time after smokers quit.
Aggregating the results of 33 other past studies, the researchers had compared a relatively small group of patients with either esophagus or gastric cardia tumors against a cancer-free group. The researchers found that current smokers were more than twice as likely as nonsmokers to develop cancer, either in gastric cardia, a part of the stomach, or in their esophagus.
In recent decades, rates of the cancers have been rising in the U.S. and Europe. The two cancers, both known as adenocarcinomas, are relatively uncommon in Western countries. Rates elsewhere are much higher, especially in less developed countries.
And while that risk declined after people stopped smoking, it was still 62 percent higher in former smokers than in lifelong non-smokers. In some studies, the extra risk of esophagus cancer persisted up to 30 years after people had quit.
