Article Text

Download PDFPDF
P053 Evaluating beneficial effects of smoking cessation on lung cancer mortality among workers with silicosis in hong kong
  1. Lap Ah Tse1,
  2. Chi Chiu Leung2,
  3. Xiaona Lin1,
  4. Hong Qiu3,
  5. Feng Wang1,
  6. Ignatius Tak-sun Yu1
  1. 1The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, China
  2. 2Pneumoconiosis Clinic, Tuberculosis and Chest Service, Department of Health, Hong Kong, China
  3. 3School of Public Health, the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

Abstract

Objectives To evaluate the beneficial effect of smoking cessation on lung cancer mortality among workers with silicosis in Hong Kong.

Methods We recruited all 3202 incident cases of silicosis in Hong Kong from 1981 to 2005 and followed up them till 2014 to ascertain the causes of death. Only 79 workers were loss to follow-up and the rate of follow-up was 97.5%. We collected each worker’s smoking habits and other important information including socio-demographics, occupational history, and medical history at the time of diagnosis of silicosis. We further collected smoking information for workers who received regular medical assessment at the clinic during the follow-up period, and the effect of smoking cessation was assessed based on the following categories: never smokers, persistent quitters, new quitters, and never quitters. We performed multiple Cox’s regression analysis to evaluate the impact of smoking cessation on lung cancer mortality.

Results During 1981–2014, a total of 1984 deaths (62%) occurred and 196 of them were from lung cancer. Compared with never smokers, lung cancer mortality was strongly associated with never quitters [hazard ratio (HR) = 7.69, 95% CI: 2.81–20.90], followed by persistent quitters (HR = 4.39, 95% CI: 1.60–12.09), and new quitters (HR = 3.30, 95% CI: 1.17–9.26). Lung cancer mortality started to decreasing after 10 years of cessation (HR = 0.90, 95% CI: 0.60–1.37) and a substantial decrease was observed after the abstinence of smoking for 30 or more years (HR = 0.40, 95% CI: 0.25–0.65).

Conclusions Smoking cessation has a beneficial effect on lung cancer mortality among workers with silicosis, with a significant impact for those who quit smoking for 30 years or more.

Acknowledgement Pneumoconiosis Compensation Fund Board, Hong Kong [Correspondence: shelly@cuhk.edu.hk]

  • smoking cessation
  • lung cancer
  • silicosis
  • cohort
  • mortality

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.