IN RECENT years there has been increasing interest in smoking as a causative factor in cancer of the respiratory and oral mucosa.
Clinical evidence and recent research strongly suggests that the use of tobacco is important in the etiology of these tumors.
There is extensive literature on the relationship of smoking and carcinoma of the lung and also on the role of tobacco use in upper respiratory tract and oral carcinomas.
Druckery1 has done experimental work showing tobacco tar to be carcinogenic to rats. This agrees with the work of many others. He also demonstrated that extracts of unsmoked tobacco are carcinogenic. Wynder and Hoffman2,3 have found that tobaccosmoke condensate is carcinogenic to a variety of animal tissues. They feel several chemical constituents are responsible and have classified "initiating carcinogens" found in the polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons and "promoting carcinogens" present in acidic fractions of tobacco-smoke condensate.
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