According to the American Cancer Society’s “Tobacco-Related Cancers Fact Sheet:”
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States for both men and women.
Lung cancer is the most preventable form of cancer death in the world.
Lung cancer estimates for 2014
New cases of lung cancer: 224,210? Males: 116,000 ?Females: 108,210
Deaths from lung cancer: 159,260 ?Males: 86,930 ?Females: 72,330
Women smokers are 25.7 times more likely than women who never smoked to develop lung cancer. For men smokers, it’s 25 times the risk of men who never smoked.
Besides lung cancer, tobacco use also increases the risk for cancers of the mouth, lips, nose and sinuses, larynx (voice box), pharynx (throat), esophagus (swallowing tube), stomach, pancreas, kidney, bladder, uterus, cervix, colon/rectum, ovary (mucinous), and acute myeloid leukemia.
In the United States, tobacco use is responsible for nearly 1 in 5 deaths; this equals about 480,000 early deaths each year.
Tobacco use accounts for at least 30% of all cancer deaths, causing 87% of lung cancer deaths in men, and 70% of lung cancer deaths in women.
Cigarette use has declined dramatically since the release of the first US Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health in 1964. Even so, about 20.5% of men and 15.8% of women still smoked cigarettes in 2012, with about 78% of these people smoking daily.
Cigars contain many of the same carcinogens (cancer-causing agents) found in cigarettes. Between 2000 and 2011, sales of small cigars had decreased by 65%, while large cigar sales increased 233%. (Note: the definition of large cigar changed in 2009, so that much smaller cigars are legally defined as “large cigars.”) Cigar smoking causes cancers of the lung, mouth, throat, larynx (voice box), esophagus (swallowing tube), and probably the pancreas.
Among first-time tobacco users, nearly 2.7 million smoked cigars, while 2.3 million smoked cigarettes
Each year, about 3,400 non-smoking adults die of lung cancer as a result of breathing secondhand smoke. Each year secondhand smoke also causes about 42,000 deaths from heart disease in people who are not current smokers.
Smokeless tobacco products are a major source of cancer-causing nitrosamines and a known cause of human cancer. They increase the risk of developing cancer of the mouth and throat, esophagus (swallowing tube), and pancreas. Smokeless tobacco kills fewer people than smoking, but using any form of tobacco harms health and can cause death.
Between 2009 and 2012 smoking-attributable economic costs were between $289 and $332.5 billion each year in the United States, including $132.5 to 175.9 billion for direct medical care of adults.