Lifetime Smoking History and Cause-Specific Mortality in a Cohort Study with 43 Years of Follow-Up

Our study indicates that lifetime numbers of cigarettes smoked and the duration of smoking have different impacts for different causes of mortality. Moreover, our findings emphasize the importance of smoking-related competing risks when studying the smoking-related cancer mortality in a general population and that smoking cessation immediately effectively reduces the risk of all-cause and any cancer mortality.