Bronchogenic Carcinoma - Predisposing Causes

Our plain-English summary of Bronchogenic Carcinoma - Predisposing Causes, by A. Ochsner (1959).

The study

• Author: A. Ochsner
• Published: The Rhode Island Medical Journal 42(8):507-512 August (1959)
• Type of article: Journal article
• Our copy: from Johns-Manville's own medical library. The article is still under copyright, so we describe it here rather than post it.

In plain English

This 1959 prize essay by a surgeon argued that cigarette smoking causes bronchogenic carcinoma (lung cancer). It was not an original study. The author drew on cancer statistics from the United States and several European countries, on published studies, and on the author's own clinical experience. The article does not discuss asbestos. The author described lung cancer as rising faster than any other cancer. Among the work cited was an American Cancer Society prospective study of about two hundred thousand men. It was reported as finding that the death rate from lung cancer in heavy cigarette smokers was 800 per cent higher than in nonsmokers. The author also cited animal experiments in which cigarette tar applied to skin produced cancer. From the author's own practice, the author reported holding for five years that a nonsmoker with a lung lesion that might be bronchogenic cancer either had adenocarcinoma or did not have cancer. The author reported being wrong only twice. No count of patients was given. The author concluded that the question was no longer whether cigarette smoking causes bronchogenic cancer. The author also urged smokers to quit and to have chest X-rays every six months.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Prize essay (narrative argument reviewing published statistics, studies and animal experiments on smoking and lung cancer), with some of the author's own clinical observations; no original study
• Who was studied: No study population of its own; the essay drew on published national cancer statistics and studies from the United States, England, Denmark, Holland, Switzerland, Finland and elsewhere, plus the author's own patients
• Exposure: Cigarette smoking (air pollution or smog was also discussed as a possible additive factor); asbestos is not mentioned
• Main results:
  • The author cited the American Cancer Society prospective study of about two hundred thousand men aged fifty to seventy as reporting a lung cancer death rate in heavy cigarette smokers 800 per cent higher than in nonsmokers (another study's result, not this article's)
  • From the author's own practice: for five years the author held that a nonsmoker with a pulmonary lesion that might be bronchogenic cancer either had adenocarcinoma or did not have a malignant disease, and reported being wrong only twice (no number of patients given)
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that it was no longer in question whether bronchogenic cancer is caused by cigarette smoking, only what would be done to remove the carcinogen in tobacco

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Bronchogenic Carcinoma, Lung Cancer, Adenocarcinoma, Chest X-Ray.

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