More smoking: worse malignancy
Heavier smokers are likely to develop a more highly malignant form of cancer than epidermoid or squamous carcinomas of the lung
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Not only are smokers more likely to develop lung cancer, but heavier smokers are also more likely to have a more malignant form of the disease, a Yale University School of Medicine study indicates.
Raymond Yesner, MD, and colleagues from the school and the VA Hospital in West Haven, Conn, report that the percentage of highly malignant undifferentiated small cell carcinomas ("oat cell" cancers) rises steadily in proportion to the amount of daily smoking. The heavier smokers also tend to have proportionately fewer epidermoid or squamous carcinomas and somewhat more adenocarcinomas, perhaps because "heavier smokers also tend to inhale more deeply" and thus involve more of the peripheral lung areas "where most adenocarcinomas arise."
The report was presented at the St. Louis meeting of
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