Carcinoma of the bronchus in tobacco farm workers. An unrecognised high risk group

A case-control study of 47 patients with bronchoscopically diagnosed carcinoma of the lung revealed that 12 were tobacco farm workers. This is significantly (p less than 0.001) greater than the number of tobacco farm workers in a healthy control group (1 out of 46). All of the tobacco farm workers smoked and 11 had smoked more than 10 pack-years of cigarettes. All of the tobacco farm workers admitted to smoking unprocessed tobacco, as did 28 of the other 35 carcinoma patients, but none of the control group. It was not possible to quantify the effect of working with tobacco or the effect of other atmosphere pollutants on a tobacco farm as possible risk factors for developing carcinoma, but this risk is unlikely to be significant compared to that from cigarette smoking.