DOCTORS have known for a long time that women who smoke increase their risk of developing cervical cancer. But the link has been unclear. Now a group of researchers has demonstrated that smoking damages the DNA in cells of the cervix, the neck of the womb.
Penelope Ward of St Mary's Hospital Medical School, London, and her colleagues looked at the tissue of women undergoing routine cervical smear tests. They reported their findings at the annual meeting of the British Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology, held in Sheffield.
The researchers suspected cervical cells might be damaged because previous studies have found the constituents of cigarette smoke in the mucus which coats them. Smoking could damage DNA in several ways. One way would be for it to cause DNA 'adducts' - extra compounds - to form on the genetic material of the cell. These adducts are products of the aromatic ...
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