Relación entre el hábito de fumar y el cáncer de pulmón (relationship between smoking and lung cancer)

Our plain-English summary of Relación entre el hábito de fumar y el cáncer de pulmón (relationship between smoking and lung cancer), by A. Ochsner (1970).

The study

• Author: A. Ochsner
• Published: La Prensa Médica Argentina 57(25):1241-1243 (1970)
• 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 short Spanish-language article by A. Ochsner is not about asbestos. It concerns cigarette smoking and lung cancer. It was mainly a narrative review with the author's own clinical recollections, but it also briefly reported original blood cytology observations from the author's institution, without describing a detailed study design. The author recalled seeing 9 cases of lung cancer in six months in 1936 at Tulane University. All were men who smoked and who had begun smoking at the start of the First World War. The article then summarized earlier studies and reports by other researchers on smoking and lung cancer. The blood cytology studies covered more than 500 cases among patients of the author's pulmonary function laboratory. The passage giving those results is cut off in this copy, although it mentions a figure of 40 percent in connection with tumor cells in peripheral arterial blood. The author noted that finding tumor cells in the blood did not necessarily mean metastases would develop. The author concluded that, except for adenocarcinoma, practically every type of lung cancer is caused by smoking, mainly cigarettes, and is therefore largely preventable.

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: Mainly a narrative review and commentary with the author's own clinical recollections, including a brief report of original blood cytology observations from the author's institution. No detailed study design is given.
• Who was studied: Lung cancer patients seen by the author: 9 cases in six months in 1936 at Tulane University, all male smokers. Also more than 500 cases given blood cytology studies among patients of the author's pulmonary function laboratory.
• Exposure: Smoking, mainly cigarettes. Asbestos is not discussed.
• Main results:
  • All 9 lung cancer patients the author saw in six months in 1936 were men who smoked and who had started smoking at the beginning of the First World War.
  • Blood cytology studies were done in more than 500 cases. The results passage is cut off in this copy. It mentions 40 percent in connection with tumor cells in peripheral arterial blood in lung cancer cases.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that lung cancer is largely preventable because, except for adenocarcinoma, practically every other type of lung cancer is caused by smoking, mainly cigarettes.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The author noted that finding tumor cells in the blood did not necessarily mean metastases would develop, since many of those cells may not be viable. This passage is partly cut off.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Lung Cancer, Cytology, Adenocarcinoma.

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