Cigarette smoking linked to pancreatic cancer.(Clinical Rounds)

HOLLYWOOD, FLA. -- Cigarette smoking plays a role in both the initiation and progression of pancreatic cancer, based on an analysis of more than 18,000 patients with the disease.

"To our knowledge, this is the first compelling evidence for a role of cigarette smoking early in the neoplastic transformation of the pancreas," Randall E. Brand, M.D., said at a symposium on gastrointestinal cancers sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

"Eventually, we will use screening tests for pancreatic cancer, and people who smoke should be screened at an earlier age than nonsmokers," said Dr. Brand, a gastroenterologist at Northwestern University in Chicago.

The study used data collected in the Cancer Information Resource File, which compiles information from more than 350 teaching and community hospitals in the United States. This database included records for 18,346 people who were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had information on their smoking history in their files.

The analysis focused on the age of patients when their pancreatic cancer was first diagnosed, splitting the patients into four categories: never smokers, prior smokers, current smokers, and ever smokers (current and prior smokers combined). For this analysis, current smokers were considered to be ...