Smoking and Cancer Mortality Table

The following table summarizes the impact of smoking as a cause of death from cancer. For each of these cancer types, the tables provide several statistics. These estimates are based on results of the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Prevention Study II (CPS II), which uses survey results from about 1,200,000 volunteers to determine what factors can cause cancer or help prevent it. Statistics from CPS II are used in the United States Surgeon General’s report on the health consequences of smoking and in other government publications.

The table describes only the effects of tobacco use on cancer deaths. They do not include deaths from other tobacco-related causes such as heart and lung diseases, which are substantial. The data is taken from the years 1997 to 2001.

"Current smoker" is defined as a person who has smoked at least 100 cigarettes over his or her lifetime and now smokes every day or some days. "Former smoker" or ex-smoker is defined as a person who has smoked more than 100 cigarettes over his or her lifetime and who does not now smoke every day or some days.

The relative risk (RR) is the risk of death from cancer among current or former smokers as compared to the risk for nonsmokers. For example, assume that the risk of death from a type of cancer among nonsmokers, ex-smokers, and current smokers was 5, 10, and 20 deaths per 100,000 people per year, respectively. The relative risk for ex-smokers would be 10 divided by 5, equaling 2. In other words, former smokers would be twice as likely as those who never smoked to die from this type of cancer. The RR for current smokers would be 20 divided by 5, equaling 4. Current smokers, then, would be 4 times more likely than those who never smoked to die from this cancer.

The effect of smoking on each type of cancer is different. For example, smoking greatly increases the risk of developing and dying from cancers of the lungs and larynx, and has a smaller effect on cancer of the pancreas.

The annual deaths column estimates the annual number of deaths from each cancer type in the United States.

Smoking attributable mortality (SAM) is the annual number of deaths from each cancer type in the United States caused by smoking.

Population attributable risk (PAR) describes the percentage of deaths from each type of cancer that are due to smoking. For example, about 89,900 men die of lung cancer each year in the United States. About 79,000 lung cancer deaths among men are caused by smoking, which means that the smoking causes about 88% of lung cancer deaths among men (100 times 79,000 divided by 89,900).

Years of potential life lost (YPLL) estimates how much a smoking-related cancer shortened the lives of people who died of these diseases each year. As a simple example, if the average life expectancy were 85 years and 1,000 people died of a smoking-related cancer at age 70, that would mean 15,000 (15 times 1,000) years of life were lost. These numbers depend both on the number of people dying from a type of cancer and the average number of years each of them loses.