Smoking Doubles Risk of Pancreatic Cancer, Study Says

Longtime cigarette smokers double their risk of pancreatic cancer, one of the fastest and least treatable of the cancer killers, a National Cancer Institute researcher said Tuesday.

Debra T. Silverman said a new study gives powerful evidence that cigarette smoking is the cause of about a quarter of all pancreatic cancers in the United States and that a halt to cigarette smoking could save thousands of lives.

The study, to be published today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, differs from earlier work on pancreatic cancer because it is based on one-on-one interviews with the cancer patients themselves.

Pancreatic cancer is so rapidly fatal, Silverman said, that most of the earlier studies on causes of the disease relied on interviews with the next of kin because the patients had already died.

“Cancer of the pancreas has a median survival period of only three months,” Silverman said.

In the study, researchers in Atlanta, Detroit and in 10 New Jersey counties interviewed 526 pancreatic cancer patients about living habits that may be related to causing the cancer. The scientists asked the same questions of 2,153 people without cancer who lived in the same areas.

The results, Silverman said, showed that about 27% of all pancreatic cancers are linked to cigarette smoking. The study also found that the longer one smokes, the greater the chance of getting the killer disease.

For smokers who quit the habit for 10 years or more, the risk was 30% lower than for people who keep smoking. The statistical improvement, however, does not start until at least 10 years after the last cigarette, Silverman said.

The reason that cancer of the pancreas has such a poor prognosis is because the disease is seldom discovered before the cancer has spread. The pancreas is a key gland in digestion and metabolism. It secretes several essential enzymes and hormones, including insulin. The six-inch-long gland is located behind the stomach.