Current Thoracic Surgery 2022 , Vol 7 , Issue 2
An analysis of cigarette smoking in thoracic surgery patients
Yunus Seyrek1,Onur Volkan Yaran1,Merve Özbek1,Nilüfer Menekşe1,Levent Cansever1,Mehmet Ali Bedirhan1
1Department of Thoracic Surgery, Health Sciences University, Yedikule Chest Disease and Thoracic Surgery Application and Research Center, Istanbul, Turkey DOI : 10.26663/cts.2022.014 Viewed : 2638 - Downloaded : 971 Background: Cigarette smoke (CS) is a long-term risk factor for several disorders of the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. In this study, we aimed to analyze the current effects of cigarette smoke on patients who underwent thoracic surgery. In line with this purpose, we analyzed patients who were admitted to a thoracic surgery clinic recently and their smoking history.

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