[Smoking and the development of lung cancer]

It is generally accepted that cigarette smoking is the most important lung cancer risk factor to which 80-90% of lung cancer mortality in advanced countries with a high tobacco consumption is ascribed. In the Czech Republic the increase of tobacco consumption since the end of the Second World War was arrested at the end of the sixties. Since the beginning of the seventies the cigarette consumption did not change substantially and varied close to 2500 cigarettes per inhabitant above 15 years. No reliable data are so far available in the Czech Republic on the development of the prevalence of smoking in different age groups of the population. According to several non-representative surveys in different districts it may be assumed that in men aged 25-64 years in the course of the last 20 years the ratio of male smokers declined probably, while it increased in female smokers. Due to the long "latency" between exposure to noxious substances and the manifestation of lung cancer which amounts to two, three or more decades, we have to evaluate the present mortality rate from lung cancer as a reflection of carcinogenic factors (above all cigarette smoking) in the more remote past. When evaluating the trend of mortality from lung cancer in the Czech Republic during 1953-1989, throughout that period the values were much higher in men that in women and the trend in the two sexes was quite different. In men the mortality rate from lung cancer increased in 1953-1967 to three times the initial value, while in women the levels remained low.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)