Researchers: Smoking increases the possibility of head and neck cancer

An international team of researchers has been able to detect the precise effect of tobacco smoke on DNA, which explains its role in the development of various types of head and neck cancer. According to statistics, about 750 thousand new cases of head and neck cancer are diagnosed annually, and 70% of them are linked to risk factors that can be prevented, most notably smoking.

While alcohol alone is responsible for only 4% of cases, the recent study showed that the combination of smoking and alcohol exacerbates DNA damage by 2.5 times, raising the risk of cancer to much higher levels than previously believed.

In the study, a team of researchers analyzed from 5 institutes, including the Wellcome Trust Sanger and the International Cancer Research Agency (IARC), 265 samples of head and neck cancer tumors taken from patients in 8 countries in Europe and South America, and they succeeded in determining 6 distinctive patterns of smoking -related DNA damage, some of which were not known before.

These patterns were more common in countries with high smoking rates, which enhances evidence of tobacco role in stimulating serious genetic changes.