Major Review Concludes Vaping Likely Causes Lung and Oral…

Major Review Concludes Vaping Likely Causes Lung and Oral Cancer Oncology | Pulmonology | Public Health For nearly two decades, e-cigarettes have been marketed and widely perceived as a safer alternative to traditional smoking, a harm-reduction tool rather than a cancer risk in their own right. A major new review from UNSW Sydney, published in the journal Carcinogenesis, challenges that assumption directly. A multidisciplinary team, bringing together specialists in pharmacy, epidemiology, thoracic surgery and public health from UNSW Sydney, the University of Queensland, Flinders University, the University of Sydney and several major hospitals, conducted what its authors describe as the most definitive assessment to date of whether vaping independently causes cancer, separate from its known role as a pathway into traditional cigarette smoking. Drawing on clinical biomarker data, animal studies and laboratory investigations into the chemicals generated by e-cigarette aerosols, the review concluded that nicotine-containing e-cigarettes are likely to cause both lung cancer and oral cancer. The evidence base included biomarkers in vapers indicating DNA damage, oxidative stress and tissue inflammation; mouse studies showing lung tumour development following vapour exposure; and laboratory work demonstrating cellular injury linked to known cancer-promoting pathways. The review also identified multiple carcinogenic substance