Clinical Oncology Society of Australia concludes “E-cigarettes are likely to cause lung cancer and oral cancer”

The Clinical Oncology Society of Australia recently released its report E-cigarettes and Cancer: A Qualitative Risk Assessment that provides a comprehensive summary of a broad range of evidence on e-cigarettes as a cause of cancer. They focused on the risks of e-cigarettes compared to not using e-cigarettes rather than comparing them to cigarettes (although they touched on this) or the risks associated with dual use (using e-cigarettes and cigarettes at the same time).

The report concludes:

Reviews of e-cigarette carcinogenicity have transitioned from assertions of credibility to indications of likelihood for lung cancer and oral cancer in particular. Taking into account all findings concerning clinical studies, animal bioassay and mechanistic data presented in this report, the following assessment is made:

Nicotine-based e-cigarettes are likely to be carcinogenic to humans who use them.

E-cigarettes are likely to cause lung cancer and oral cancer.

The thing I like most about this report is its comprehensive nature, considering the full range of evidence.

The strength of overall evidence shown for these conclusions is summed up in Table 2 from the report, which considers both evidence in humans and experimental evidence together, as well as carcinogenicity data for particular aerosol components.

The project was supported by the Cancer Council of Australia and the Lung Foundation of Australia.

COSA’s web page on the report, which includes links to other useful materials is here and the press release about the report is here.