Objective

Smoking remains an important risk factor for the development of lung cancer, with adenocarcinomas representing the most common histological type in the western world. This study aims to update the evidence base associating smoking status with histological sub-types of lung cancer, and investigate its impact on patient outcome following tumour resection.

Methods

All patients who underwent lung cancer resection between July 2013 and April 2015 were identified from a prospectively maintained database. Patient demographics, pathological outcomes and length of hospital stay were analysed for association with pre-operative cigarette smoking status.

Results

Of the 375 patients included in analysis, there were 91 current smokers (24%), 238 ex-smokers (64%) and 46 who had never smoked (12%). Mean age was similar for all three groups (68 years). Prevalence of pathology type by smoking status is shown in the table. 10% of all patients had N2 disease, of which most patients were ex-smokers. Mean length of stay was 11, 9 and 6 days for smokers, ex-smokers and never smokers respectively.

Conclusion

In keeping with current evidence, adenocarcinoma was the most common histological type of lung cancer in our cohort. Smoking was also associated with an increased incidence of squamous cell carcinoma as a proportion of all sub-types. Importantly, non-smokers had a reduced length of hospital stay. Further prospective study with a larger sample size is needed to determine the clinical significance of our findings.