AIDS Pathology Pathology of Drug Abuse Pathology of Drug Abuse Click here to return to the main menu. Smoking contributes to more than 400,000 deaths each year in the United States. These deaths are mainly the result of increased numbers of lung cancers as well as increased cases of emphysema of the lung and atherosclerotic heart disease.
Smoking increases the risk for cancers of the urinary tract.
There is an increased risk for gastritis and gastric ulceration in persons who smoke. Young women who are pregnant and who smoke put their fetuses at increased risk for decreased birth weight, premature birth, and perinatal mortality. Normal lung, gross. Squamous cell carcinoma of the lung in a smoker, gross. Emphysema, centrilobular type, with numerous enlarged air spaces as a result of the loss of lung tissue from smoking, gross.