THE EFFECTS OF SMOKING ON LUNG CANCER RATES AMONG ADULTS

Objective Summary

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Objective Summary

Who: Lung cancer and smoking association differences among women and men by O'Keeffe et al. 

Why: This study's main objective was to examine the gender differences in lung cancer and smoking association.  

When: The authors conducted research between 1999 and 2016. In this period, the researchers considered the age and pre-existing condition of participants from the previous studies. 

Where: The authors reviewed Embase and PubMed for journal articles, documenting the association between lung cancer and smoking in a general sample of women and men. Two researchers independently screened studies and a third author resolved any disagreements. Data were retrieved in triplicate from papers thought to be relevant.

How: The researchers conducted meta-analyses and systematic reviews of previously conducted prospective cohort studies on gender- the relationship of having smoked with the risk of death from any non-fatal lung cancer recently published. They scanned for articles published in EMBASE and Medline databases. The computer-assisted search incorporated medically significant terms and complimentary phrases related to 'smoking,' ' lung cancer,' "gender," and "cohort prospective studies."(O’Keeffe et al.2018). The authors then used random-effects meta-analysis to pool the variations in the natural log of the Parameter across trials in their meta-analysis. The authors also performed planned subgroup analyses to test the results' validity. According to the findings, the study discovered no variation in the probability of lung cancer in both sexes. .O’Keeffe et al.(2018) states that "In this systematic review and meta-analysis, comprising data from more than 7 million participants, 99 cohort studies, and over 50000 incident cases of lung cancer, there was no evidence for a difference in the risk of smoking-related lung cancer in women compared with men"(p.4). This statement was accurate across many subgroups of men. Although because the smoking rate and severity were greater in men than in women in many studies of the review, the authors explain that there could be an undiscovered gender difference in the likelihood of cancer for the lungs that will show when cigarette smoking becomes highly prevalent in women. 

Reference

O’Keeffe, L. M., Taylor, G., Huxley, R. R., Mitchell, P., Woodward, M., & Peters, S. A. (2018). Smoking as a risk factor for lung cancer in women and men: a systematic review and meta-analysis.  BMJ open,  8(10), e021611.