Cigarette smoking and prostate cancer: No relation with six measures of lifetime smoking habits in a large case-control study among U.S. Whites

BACKGROUND The study was undertaken to describe the association between lifetime cigarette smoking habits and prostate cancer. Whereas most case‐control and cohort studies report no association, the positive findings from some large cohort studies are difficult to ignore. The available information on lifetime smoking habits from most studies is limited however. METHODS In a study of 1,097 prostate cancer cases and 3,250 matched controls, admitted between 1969 and 1991 to U.S. hospitals, several ordinal measures of lifetime smoking were compared to look for dose‐response or threshold associations. RESULTS No association was seen between prostate cancer and former or current smoking, age started smoking, number of years smoked, cigarettes per day smoked, the number of years since quitting, and lifetime tar exposure. CONCLUSIONS Our data provide the most complete dose‐response smoking information to date, and support the findings from the majority of studies that prostate cancer is not associated with cigarette smoking. Prostate 33:195–200, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.