Healthcare

The relationship between smoking and risk of bladder cancer has been known from several previous studies with the level of risk ranging from 50% to 65% in male smoker, 20% to 30% in female smokers, and the risk increased 3-fold in current smokers compared with never smoked people.

Although there is decline in smoking habits in overall at the moment due to better understanding of adverse effects of smoking or high concern in maintaining health, but the content of toxin in cigarettes are also growing at this time, including beta-naphthylamine which is carcinogenic for bladder, even the concentrations of tar and nicotine in cigarette smoke has decreased.

Recent findings reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association on August 17, 2011, the researchers found that the risk of bladder cancer in the smokers tends to be high in both sexes compared with nonsmokers.

According to study authors led by Neal D. Freedman, PhD, MPH, of the Nutritional Epidemiology Branch of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health (NIH) and colleagues, based on analyzed the National Institutes of Health-AARP (NIH-AARP) Diet and Health Study database involved 281,394 men and 186,134 women and were followed between October 1995 and December 2006, 3896 of men and 627 women have diagnosed with bladder cancer.

This is presenting that the incidence rate of bladder cancer about 144.0 per 100,000 person-years in men and 34.5 per 100,000 person-years in women.

For both sexes, former smokers have the incidence rates of 119.8 per 100,000 person-years, 117.3 per 100,000 person-years in current smokers, and 39.8 per 100,000 person-years for never-smokers.

Previous studies have shown a decreased risk of bladder cancer on them (both sexes) who quit smoking. Significant results are shown on the individuals who had quit smoking for 10 years compared with those who stopped 1 to 4 years or 5 to 9 years before baseline.

However, based on current results, when compared with never-smokers, the relative risks remained even for those who had quit smoking 10 year or more before baseline.

Therefore, since many carcinogens in cigarette smoke, the authors said that the best approaching for public health is never smoke, and if they are smokers, then stop.