Tobacco smoking as a risk factor of bronchioloalveolar carcinoma of the lung: pooled analysis of seven case-control studies in the International Lung Cancer Consortium (ILCCO)

• Published in: Cancer causes & control 2011-01, Vol.22 (1), p.73-79
• Main Authors: Boffetta, Paolo, Jayaprakash, Vijayvel, Yang, Ping, Asomaning, Kofi, Muscat, Joshua E, Schwartz, Ann G, Zhang, Zuo-Feng, Le Marchand, Loic, Cote, Michele L, Stoddard, Shawn M, Morgenstern, Hal, Hung, Rayjean J, Christiani, David C
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adenocarcinoma, Bronchiolo-Alveolar - epidemiology; Adenocarcinoma, Bronchiolo-Alveolar - etiology; Age; Aged; Bacterial artificial chromosomes; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Bronchioloalveolar carcinoma; Bronchogenic carcinoma; Cancer; Cancer Research; Carcinoma; Case-Control Studies; Cigar smoking; Cigarette smoking; Cigarettes; Collaboration; Consortia; Data processing; Drug addiction; Epidemiology; Female; Hematology; Histology; Hospitals; Humans; Lung cancer; Lung carcinoma; Lung neoplasms; Lung Neoplasms - epidemiology; Lung Neoplasms - etiology; Lungs; Male; Medicine; Middle Aged; Odds Ratio; Oncology; Original Paper; Pathology; Public Health; Races; Risk Factors; Sex; Smoking; smoking (habit); Smoking - adverse effects; Smoking cessation; Tobacco; Tobacco smoking
• ISSN: 0957-5243; 1573-7225
• DOI: 10.1007/s10552-010-9676-5

Background The International Lung Cancer Consortium (ILCCO) was established in 2004, based on the collaboration of research groups leading large molecular epidemiology studies of lung cancer that are ongoing or have been recently completed. This framework offered the opportunity to investigate the role of tobacco smoking in the development of bronchioloalveolar carcinoma (BAC), a rare form of lung cancer. Methods Our pooled data comprised seven case-control studies from the United States, with detailed information on tobacco smoking and histology, which contributed 799 cases of BAC and 15,859 controls. We estimated the odds ratio of BAC for tobacco smoking, using never smokers as a referent category, after adjustment for age, sex, race, and study center. Results The odds ratio of BAC for ever smoking was 2.47 (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.08, 2.93); the risk increased linearly with duration, amount, and cumulative cigarette smoking and persisted long after smoking cessation. The proportion of BAC cases attributable to smoking was 0.47 (95% CI 0.39, 0.54). Conclusions This analysis provides a precise estimate of the risk of BAC for tobacco smoking.