|Home A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z| |Home
Q Quit Smoking: Cigarette Smoking and Cervical Cancer| Cervical
cancer is the second most common type of cancer in women
worldwide, after breast cancer. It affects about 15,700 women in
the United States each year, and 4,900 women die from the
disease, according to the American Cancer Society. Risk factors
include smoking, infection with human papilloma-virus and
contraceptive use. A study by Dr. Carolyn Runowicz at the
Montefiore Medical Center in New York of 60 women who had
advanced cervical cancer showed 85% were smokers and the rest
had significant exposure to passive smoking, generally through
spouses who smoked. While nicotine is generally not considered a
causative agent, smoking may predispose a woman to the
development of cervical cancer by lowering her immune
surveillance at the cellular level. Another study, carried out
over a period of 10 years, reported that for women infected with
the human papilloma-virus, smoking increases the r