Mentholated cigarettes and non-lung smoking related cancers in California, USA.

Abstract

We sought to discover if the higher risk among men of lung cancer associated with menthola ted than with plain cigarettes1 applied as well to other smoking related cancers (upper aerodi gestive: mouth, pharynx, larynx, oesophagus; pancreas, renal adenocarcinoma, other urinary tract (urothelium), cervix). In 1979-1985, 79 946 subscribers of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in northern California, age 30-89 years, completed a detailed question naire about smoking habits2 and were followed up through 1994. We here focus on 5770 men and 5990 women (58 438 and 63 775 person years, respectively) who reported cigarette smoking currently and for at least 20 years at the time of completing the questionnaires and who were free of smoking related cancers at entry and who had recorded whether their cur rent cigarette was mentholated.1 Compared with never smokers (14 409 men and 25 402 women) the rate ratio (95% confidence inter vals (CIs)) for all of these long term smokers, of developing any of these non-lung cancers was 3.22 (2.55, 4.08) among men, and 2.23 (1.80, 2.76) among women. These and the mentholated/plain rate ratios and confidence intervals were calculated by the Mantel Haenszel method adjusting for age. The num bers of mentholated cigarette smokers and plain cigarette smokers were, men: 1579 and 4191, women: 2075 and 3915, respectively. Risk was not increased among persons who currently smoked mentholated compared with plain cigarettes for all of the non-lung smoking related cancers combined or for most sites studied. Two modestly increased rate ratios had 95% confidence intervals that widely over lapped 1.0 (table 1). Results were similar when current smokers of mentholated and plain cigarettes were restricted, respectively, to per sons who reported smoking mentholated ciga