TOBACCO SMOKING
Objective: To assess the risk of different cancer sites among the male smokersof the Southern Punjab, Pakistan. Study Design: Case-control design. Period: March - July2012. Setting: A data set of 596 males, belonging to the Southern Punjab was collectedfrom the Outdoor Ward of Cancer, Oncology Ward of Nishtar Hospital and Multan Institute ofNuclear Medicine and Radiotherapy (MINAR) Hospital. Method: Through a self-administeredquestionnaire, smoking status and respondent’s history and medical record of various typesof cancers were noted. The Chi-square test was used to assess the association betweentobacco smoking and cancer disease. For the risk analysis, odds ratios and attributable riskwere computed. Results: Among the respondents, 49.0% smoked tobacco. From the medicalrecord, 438 respondents were confirmed cancerous. The average age to start tobacco wasnoted to be 23.41 ± 4.85 while the age was 45.29 ± 12.24 years for tobacco cessation. Thepercentage of lung cancer among smokers is 24.01 which is highest among all the statedcancer sites. The risk of a smoker getting all types of the stated cancers is at least three times.The risk of lung cancer attributed to smoking is 17.65 and 50.7% of all the stated cancers.Conclusions: Smokers in the Southern Punjab can greatly reduce their risk (more than 50%)of cancer if they quit smoking.