Author Description

This dissertation, "Smoking and Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma: Prospective Evidence From the Guangzhou Occupational Cohort Study and a Meta-analysis" by Jiahuang, Lin,, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Background: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), also known as Cantonese cancer, has a particularly high incidence in North Africa and Southeast Asia, especially in Guangdong, China, such as Guangzhou, but it is a rare tumor worldwide. Tobacco is a well-known causal factor for head and neck cancers, except NPC. In the 2014 United States Surgeon General's report and the 2012 China Tobacco Hazard Report, NPC is not considered as causally related to smoking. Evidence supporting the association between smoking and the risk of NPC mainly came from case-control studies, but prospective evidence remains limited. We used Guangzhou Occupational Cohort Study data to conduct the first prospective study on smoking and NPC mortality in an NPC high-risk region and updated the meta-analysis results focused on prospective cohort studies. Methods: In the Guangzhou Occupational Cohort Study, from March 1988 to December 1992, baseline data of demographic characteristics and smoking status and alcohol drinking were collected through occupational health examinations in factories and driver examination stations. Vital status and causes of deaths were retrieved until the end of 1999. Cox proportional hazard model was used to assess the association of smoking with NPC mortality. For the updated meta-analysis, the most updated results of all cohort studies (including the Guangzhou Occupational Cohort Study) were included,