It is estimated that one in three people will develop cancer at some stage in their lives and that one in four will die from the disease. A 1996 review of cancers related to smoking concluded that cigarette smoking is also a cause of cancers of the stomach, liver, nose and of leukaemia.
Lung cancer is the cancer most commonly associated with smoking.
Female mortality rates from lung cancer reached 300 per million in the late 1980s and early 1990s. There is some evidence of a small decrease since then, especially in younger women. The risk of dying from lung cancer increases with the number of cigarettes smoked per day. Smokers who start when they are young are at an increased risk of developing lung cancer. Results of a study of ex-smokers with lung cancer found that those who started smoking before age 15 had twice as many cell mutations as those who started after age 20.