cigarette smoking and risk of nasopharyngeal carcinoma
Purpose/Objective
Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is one of the most important cancers in Morocco , with 5-7 cases/ 100,000 persons a year . Its etiology is not well known, but cigarette smoking has been implicated in some epidemiologic studies.
This is a retrospective epidemiological study of the NPC in the North-West of Morocco , to evaluates the impact of the consumption of tobacco on the risk of development of NPC.
Material/Methods
In this retrospective study, we identified 194 patients with nasopharyngeal cancers, treated in the Radiotherapy department at the National Oncology Institute in Rabat between January 1st, 2019 and December 31, 2021 by curative concurrent chemo-radiotherapy.
We compared the number of patients using cigarettes with the number of non-smokers patients.
Results
The study show that this cancer was predominant in men, particularly in the population between 40- and 59-years-old.
The percentage of patients who smoked was 33% (63 patients) compared with 67% of non-smokers patients (131 patients).
Conclusion
Based on the information provided earlier, we can conclude that our findings indicate there is no association between long-term cigarette smoking and the risk of developing Nasopharyngeal carcinoma.