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May 12, 2017
Cigarette smoking was associated with non-melanoma skin cancer, and the risk increased with increasing dose (cigarettes per day) and number of years smoked. Among men, smoking was modestly associated with BCC and SCC. Among women, smoking was strongly associated with SCC, but not BCC.
Why women smokers should be more likely than men to be diagnosed with SCC is not clear, said the researchers.
"Observations from the lung cancer literature may provide possible explanations for why smoking was a higher risk factor for SCC in women," wrote Rollison and co-authoring colleagues both at Moffitt and across USF's College of Medicine. "Female current smokers have higher lung cancer risks than men. Women have been shown to have more active CYP enzyme activity in the lung, where CYP is responsible for metabolizing 70-80 percent of nicotine. In addition, the up-regulation of CYP by estrogen may play a role."
Also, women have been shown to have higher levels of DNA adducts and lower levels of DNA repair in the lung as compared to men, said Rollison.
"Further study is needed to shed more light on the sex-based differences and the role of smoking in non-melanoma skin cancers," concluded Rollison.
Source: H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute