CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, Vol 5, 95-100, Copyright
© 1955 by American Cancer Society
Lung Cancers and Their Causes
W. C. Hueper M.D.1
1 The National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, United States Public Health Service, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Bethesda, Maryland.
1. The total epidemiological, clinical, pathological, and experimental evidence on hand clearly indicates that not a single but several if not numerous industrial or industry-related atmospheric pollutants are to a great part responsible for the causation of lung cancer.
2. While the available data do not permit any definite statement as to the relative importance of the various recognized respiratory carcinogens in the production of lung cancers in the general population, they nevertheless unmistakingly suggest that cigarette smoking is not a major factor in the causation of lung cancer nor had it a predominant role in the remarkable increase of these tumors during recent decades.
3. In view of the fact that not only a great deal of the existing circumstantial epidemiological evidence but also pratically the entire factual and conclusive evidence available on exogenous respiratory carcinogens are either of occupational origin or point to industry-related factors, it would be most unwise at this time to base future preventive measures of lung-cancer hazards mainly on the cigarette theory and to concentrate the immediate epidemiological and experimental efforts on this evidently overpropagandized and insufficiently documented concept.
