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The strong correlation between smoking and exposure to oncogenic human papillomaviruses (HPVs) has made it difficult to verify the independent role of smoking in cervical carcinogenesis. Thus, the authors evaluated this role. Five large Nordic serum banks containing samples from more than 1,000,000 subjects were linked with nationwide cancer registries (1973-2003). Serum samples were retrieved from 588 women who developed invasive cervical cancer and 2,861 matched controls. The samples were analyzed for cotinine (a biomarker of tobacco exposure) and antibodies to HPV types 16 and 18, herpes simplex virus type 2, and Chlamydia trachomatis. Smoking was associated with the risk of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) among HPV16- and/or HPV18-seropositive heavy smokers (odds ratio=2.7, 95% confidence interval: 1.7, 4.3). A similar risk of SCC (odds ratio=3.2, 95% confidence interval: 2.6, 4.0) was found in heavy smokers after adjustment for HPV16/18 antibodies. The point estimates increased with increasing age at diagnosis and increasing cotinine level. This study confirms that smoking is an independent risk factor for cervical cancer/SCC in women infected with oncogenic HPVs. These findings emphasize the importance of cervical cancer prevention among women exposed to tobacco smoke. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The North Karelia project, a community-based programme for prevention of cardiovascular diseases in North Karelia in 1972-1977, was successful in reducing some major cardiovascular risk factors. It was studied whether changes in the incidence of smoking- or diet-related cancers in North Karelia were different from those in a reference area without a programme.Methods: Poisson age-period-cohort-county regression models were fitted to each cancer-sex combination. Specially designed variables were added to the best models to detect any post-programme changes in the incidence trend in North Karelia.Results: After having been consistently higher, the incidence of lung cancer among males in North Karelia decreased below that of the reference county during 1987-1991. The programme-related risk ratio in 1987-1991 indicated a significant 20% beneficial effect. The trend in stomach cancer among males was more favourable in the reference county than in North Karelia.Conclusion: The quicker reduction in smoking may have caused the more favourable trend of lung cancer among North Karelian males than males in the reference county. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The aim of the study was to analyse the pattern of lung cancer mortality from 1960 to 1989 and to predict lung cancer mortality for 1990-1999 for males and females aged > or = 30 years in the Czech and Slovak Republics.Method: The mortality pattern of lung cancer was examined and predicted using republic-age-period-cohort models.Results: Trends in lung cancer mortality were upward for both sexes over the study period. In the early 1960s, lung cancer mortality in Slovak males was much lower than that in Czech males, but since the late 1960s lung cancer mortality in males increased more rapidly in Slovakia than in the Czech Republic. It was predicted that mortality due to lung cancer in Slovak males would exceed that in Czech males during the last 5 years of the 20th century. Slovak female lung cancer mortality was lower than that for Czech females throughout the study period, and the trends in both republics were similar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]