The Carcinogenic Effects of Tobacco

A summary of numerous experiments carried out at the Cancer Institute in Buenos Aires which provide evidence for the carcinogenic effect of tobacco smoking. Professor Dr. A. H. Roffo Even a cursory glance at the cancer statistics for all countries shows the currently well known fact that, while the numbers of cases of cancers other than throat cancer have either only slowly increased or decreased (even if only temporally or to a very small extent), disturbingly, the number of cases of lung cancer has increased. We observed this trend several years ago in our clinic before we could confirm it statistically and it coincided with another observation: that lung and throat cancer are extraordinarily rare among women. A third statistically proven fact was that 95% of patients with lung or throat cancer were heavy smokers. The fact that the bad habit of tobacco smoking has not yet been taken up by women in our society explains why this cancer is so infrequent among them; furthermore, the few cases of throat cancer that we have observed among women in our institute all involved heavy smokers. Here are some statistics from our work which illustrate these conclusions: I. Deaths due to cancer along the “smoker’s highway