ets exposure, lung cancer - Legacy Tobacco Documents Library

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association between a certain exposure and a disease state ~
provides the researcher with some assurance that the odds ratio
and the association are meaningful and potentially reproducible~
it is still an estimate with some degree of uncertainty and by r,o
means proves that the exposure is the cauve of a par.ticular ~
disease .
An added aspect of uncertainty in epidemiologic studies
relates to the involvement of 'rconfounding variables" and other,
sources of bias that can produce misleading results . Confoundiqg
variables are factors, other than the exposure in question, tha~d could influence the occurrence of a disease of interest and must
be adjusted for in the analysis . 3^e%- ;~}l-., U 4,-i k=Jn tha'' 1
jler P i t•d ~~iri ~i nn ?rA rir gk fa .tOr5 'fbr~'anc^~2 . In O Cla~~ft7r
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ZTS and Primarv Luna Cancer
To date, 35 published epidemiologic reports have exanined 1the association bet,•ieen ETS exposure and primary lung cancer in ;
the nons,ao!:er [Table 1] . These reports have described studie 's
conducted in Asia (16 reports) ['Table 2], Europe, and the Unitea
States . In most of these studies, nonsmoking women have been the
subjects and spousal smoking has served as the surrogate for or ;
marker of ETS exposure . In other words, the risk of lung cancer
due to ETS has been based upon the occurrence rate of the diseabe
in nonsmoking women married to smokers compared to the occurrenCe
rate of the disease in nonsmoking women married to nons