Experimental Aspects of Tobacco Carcinogenesis

¹ Division of Preventive Medicine, Sloan-Kettering Institute, New York

Experimental studies have demonstrated that tobacco smoke condensate is carcinogenic to a variety of animal tissues. Chemical constituents have been determined which at least in part may account for the tumorigenic activity. It can also be shown that some of these constituents can be reduced in the smoke.

As stated at the beginning, it is not the primary purpose of the laboratory experiment to establish cancer causation in man —a problem which is approached today only with human data—but rather its purpose is an attempt to explain the possible mechanism in terms of laboratory animals. If these results are applied to the human setting, caution must be used. In view of the massive epidemiologic and statistical evidence linking smoking to several types of human cancer, particularly that of lung cancer, the results of the animal work and the chemical analysis gain in importance. The conclusions one may derive have not only academic significance in defining the observed carcinogenic activity in terms of chemical components, but may also some day prove to be of practical importance.