ArticleBritish journal of cancer2016
The fraction of breast cancer attributable to smoking: The Norwegian women and cancer study 1991-2012.
Article in British journal of cancer, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- Meta-analysis of smoking and breast cancer risk: by age of smoking initiation.Breast cancer (Tokyo, Japan) · 2025Pooled it
- Childhood exposure to second-hand smoke (SHS) and risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal never smokers: the Multiethnic Cohort (MEC) study.Breast cancer research : BCR · 2025Article
- S100A8/A9 innate immune signaling as a distinct mechanism driving progression of smoking-related breast cancers.Oncogene · 2025Article
- The role of lifestyle factors in the association between education and self-reported fibromyalgia: a mediation analysis.BMC women's health · 2024Article
- Healthy lifestyles, systemic inflammation and breast cancer risk: a mediation analysis.BMC cancer · 2024Article
- Associations of breast cancer related exposures and gene expression profiles in normal breast tissue-The Norwegian Women and Cancer normal breast tissue study.Cancer reports (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2023Article
- Article
- Smoking history and breast cancer risk by pathological subtype: MCC-Spain study.Tobacco induced diseases · 2023Article
- Health effects associated with smoking: a Burden of Proof study.Nature medicine · 2022Article
- Never-smokers and the fraction of breast cancer attributable to second-hand smoke from parents during childhood: the Norwegian Women and Cancer Study 1991-2018.International journal of epidemiology · 2022Article
- Differences in breast cancer-risk factors between screen-detected and non-screen-detected cases (MCC-Spain study).Cancer causes & control : CCC · 2022Article
- Mendelian randomisation study of smoking exposure in relation to breast cancer risk.British journal of cancer · 2021Article
- Article
- Global, regional, and national mortality trends of female breast cancer by risk factor, 1990-2017.BMC cancer · 2021Article
- Combined Lifestyle Behaviors and the Incidence of Common Cancer Types in the Norwegian Women and Cancer Study (NOWAC).Clinical epidemiology · 2021Article
- A Step Forward in Breast Cancer Research: From a Natural-Like Experimental Model to a Preliminary Photothermal Approach.International journal of molecular sciences · 2020Article
- Smoking and breast cancer risk by race/ethnicity and oestrogen and progesterone receptor status: the Multiethnic Cohort (MEC) study.International journal of epidemiology · 2019Article
- Smoking and risk of breast cancer in the Generations Study cohort.Breast cancer research : BCR · 2017Article
- A possible dual effect of cigarette smoking on the risk of postmenopausal breast cancer.European journal of epidemiology · 2017Article
- Breast cancer and exposure to tobacco smoke during potential windows of susceptibility.Cancer causes & control : CCC · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundResults from several recent cohort studies on smoking and breast cancer incidence and mortality suggest that the burden of smoking on society is underestimated. We estimated the fraction of breast cancer attributable to smoking in the Norwegian Women and Cancer Study, a nationally representative prospective cohort study.
methodsWe followed 130 053 women, aged 34-70 years, who completed a baseline questionnaire between 1991 and 2007, through linkages to national registries through December 2012. We used Cox proportional hazards models to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs), while adjusting for confounders. Never smokers, excluding passive smokers, were used as the reference group in all main analyses. We estimated attributable fractions (AFs) % in smokers and in the population (PAFs) % with 95% CIs.
resultsAltogether, 4293 women developed invasive breast cancer, confirmed by histology. Compared with never active, never passive smokers, ever (former and current) smokers had an overall risk of breast cancer that was 21% higher (HR=1.21; 95% CI=1.08-1.34). For ever smokers, the AF was 17.3% (95% CI =7.4-25.4) and for the population the PAF of breast cancer was 11.9% (95% CI=5.3-18.1). For passive smokers, the PAF of breast cancer was 3.2% (95% CI=1.0-5.4). When we applied PAF estimates for ever smoking on the 2907 new breast cancer cases among Norwegian women aged 35+ at diagnosis in 2012, this yielded 345 (95% CI=154-526) breast cancer cases that could have been avoided in the absence of active smoking that year.
conclusionsIn smokers, one in six and in the population, one in nine breast cancer cases could have been avoided in the absence of active smoking. Our findings support the notion that the global cancer burden due to smoking is substantially underestimated.
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