Materials and Methods: We reviewed patients who underwent thoracic surgery (n = 867) and were admitted to our clinic between January 2018 and December 2018. The patients were categorized into seven groups comprising the most common types of thoracic pathology as, lung carcinoma (n = 338), pneumothorax (n = 219), pleural effusion (n = 131), mediastinal lymphadenopathy (n = 77), pneumomediastinum (n = 22), bronchiectasis (n = 30), and hydatid cyst (n = 10). Cases were reviewed in detail for demographics, smoking history in terms of pack-years, thoracic pathology, and hospitalization duration (days).

Results: Statistical analysis revealed that smoking is still a significant factor contributing to lung cancer. Cigarette smoke did not appear to be a factor in mediastinal lymphadenopathy, bronchiectasis, pleural effusion or hydatid cyst cases. Additionally, hospitalization duration was significantly longer in the smoker group.

Conclusions: The data reviewed are compatible with the current knowledge on the mechanisms of cigarette smoke-related pathologies. Cigarette smoke is still associated with common thoracic surgery pathologies such as lung carcinoma, pneumothorax, and pneumomediastinum. This may be rephrased thus, the absence of cigarette smoke would greatly decrease the prevalence of thoracic surgery cases. Keywords : cigarette smoking, lung neoplasms, pneumothorax, pleural effusion, lymphadenopathy, mediastinum, COPD, thoracic surgery