[Exposure to smoke and its effects on pulmonary diseases]

For many diseases, tobacco smoke is the most important risk factor. To understand the different risks concerning both quality and severity of the possible diseases, the differentiation between mainstream smoke, sidestream smoke and environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is indispensable, since the different types of smoke are associated with different diseases. Before anything else, tobacco smoke is the main risk factor for the development of lung cancer and with restrictions for laryngeal and pharyngeal carcinomas as well. Moreover, the inhalation of tobacco smoke is of great importance in the genesis of chronic obstructive lung diseases (COPD). During recent years it has generally been acknowledged that ETS, besides a general activity in cancerogenesis also, seems to induce other morbidities. Nevertheless, when looking at the risks of smoking it has to be mentioned that the difficulty of gaining reliable information concerning quality and quantity of the smoking and the exposure to ETS is significant. That is why in many cases the relation between the dose of tobacco smoke and its effect is hard to make out. Not to be denied is the fact that both active and passive smoking has a great impact on the respiratory tract, which should be considered carefully when it comes to children being exposed to ETS. The age of children when exposed to regular ETS for the first time plays a key role concerning their disposition to later developing a COPD or a bronchial asthma. This subject of ETS is especially of great interest in the work of company doctors because there are many people exposed to ETS for many hours every day in their work environment. This problem is most obvious in the gastronomic work sector.