AB 38. The smoking habits in rural population and its effects on the lung
Background: From the mid-20th century, widespread smoking habit and environmental pollution associated with the epidemic increase in the incidence and death from lung cancer. Smoking is the main cause of over 90% of lung cancers which have made the disease a public health problem in endemic proportions. The risk of disease depends on the number of cigarettes smoked. The risk for a smoker of 25 or more cigarettes a day are 25 to 30 times higher than a non-smoker. The purpose of this study was to examine and evaluate in the cytology laboratory retrospectively material samples from 3,064 patients with a history of smoking. We studied the epidemiological characteristics of patients, histological type and smoking habit.
Patients and methods: A total of 3,064 tested speciments (bronchial washing, brushing, FNA) of patients with smoking habit average PY =36 and age over 55. All patients underwent bronchoscopy in 1ST Pulmonary Departmen at the General Hospital of Kavala because of the abnormal radiographic image.
Results: Of the 3,064 samples of material, 402 were diagnosed with lung cancer. A total of 123 materials were suspicious of malignancy with severe atypical squamous cell metaplasia and of the remaining negative samples 73% showed inflammatory reaction. The following table shows in detail the results of the positive samples (Table 1).
Full table
Conclusions: Smokers in this study show clear advantage to squamous cell cancer, followed by the-small and adenocarcinoma. Smoking is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the modern world. To effectively reduce the epidemic of smoking it is necessary to take urgent measures and initiatives to organize termination programs, both at individual and social level.