UICC World Cancer Congress 2006

Methods:Eligible cases for this hospital-based case-control study comprised 139 lung cancer patients and the same number of frequency matched controls, all interviewed according to a pre-designed questionnaire. Risk analyses were done using unconditional logistic regression, which provides results in the form of crude odd ratio.

Results:Patients comprised 78% of current smokers (CS), 15,8% of ex-smokers (ES), and only 5,8% of never smokers (NS), compared to 41% of CS, 27,3% of ES and 31,7% of NS in the controls. Group of so-called “heavy” smokers included 12,8% of patients and 5,2% of controls. The odds ratio (OR) was 7,58 (95%CI 3,41-16,85) for ever-smokers and 3,18 (95%CI 1,27-7,98) for ES, compared to NS. CS who smoked <20cigarettes/day had 7,58 (95%CI 3,41-16,85) higher risk for lung cancer compared to NS. CS who smoked >15years had 3,40(95%CI 0,78-14,77) times higher risk compared to those who smoked <15years. Risk from developing lung cancer was 5,73(95%CI 0,98-33,47) times higher among CS who smoked >15years>20c/day, compared to those who smoked <15years<20c/day. Conclusion:Our results support the statements that cigarette smoking is by far the most important cause of the on-going epidemic of lung cancer in Macedonia. Concerted control of smoking appears to be an urgent priority in lung cancer prevention, including efforts to prevent adolescents from starting to smoke and encouraging cessation among established smokers.