DURATION OF SMOKING AND QUANTITY OF TOBACCO USED BY PATIENTS WITH GASTRIC CANCER

221 patients with gastric cancer (g.c), 174 of them current or ex-smokers, have been questioned about their smoking habits. Data regarding 157 patients (131 men and 26 women) who had smoked more than a total of 20 kg have been analysed. While the women start smoking at different ages, the men start early, at approximately the same age, the majority before 16. The average duration of smoking was 48 years for men and 37 years for women. The average quantity of tobacco used was 378 kg for men and 176 kg for women. Among the women there is a marked dispersion in respect to the duration of smoking as well as the age on admission for g.c. Among the men there was an accumulation of admissions around the age of 64, i.e. after an average of 48 years of smoking. Thus in men there is a definite concurrence between the duration of smoking and the time of admission for g.c. In men over 60 years there is a statistically significant relation between the average total amount of tobacco used and the time of admission for g.c, independent of the patient's age. It is concluded that the use of tobacco may be one of the causes of the higher frequency of g.c. in men than in women.