Smoking and biliary tract cancers in a cohort of US veterans.

​Cigarette smokers may be highly predisposed to develop cancers of the biliary tract.

The aim of this study was to determine whether cigarette smoking is a risk factor for cancers of the biliary tract (CBT). Researchers tracked the smoking habits of over 200,000 US veterans for 26 years and assessed the risk of acquiring biliary tract cancers in all the participants in this study.

Researchers observed that cancers of the biliary tract were more likely to occur in smokers than in non smokers. In fact, a 2-fold increase in biliary tract cancer risk was found among cigarette smokers in this study. "This cohort study is consistent with reports that smoking is a risk factor for CBT," concluded the authors.