The largest study ever to look at secondhand smoke as a risk factor for breast cancer death refutes the findings of some smaller, earlier studies. It was found that wives of smokers are no more likely to die of breast cancer than wives of nonsmokers. Daniel Wartenberg, PhD, professor of environmental and community medicine at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, was lead author of the article that was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

In 1982, the researchers interviewed 146,488 women who had never smoked. They then identified the women who lived with spouses who smoked. Using death records through 1994, the investigators compared the breast cancer death rates of women whose mates were smokers and those whose partners never smoked. A total of 669 women died of breast cancer during the12-year period, but Wartenberg said that there was no suggestion that tobacco smoke played a role. He stated that this study, with its large numbers, presents the most statistically solid evidence on the question.

"Breast cancer mortality rates did not show a statistically significant increase with the number of packs of cigarettes smoked by the spouse, the duration of spousal smoking or the pack-years of smoking," the study stated.

Wartenberg, who is a researcher at the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute (EOHSI), a joint program of UMDNJ and Rutgers, was quick to point out that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke should not be ignored since it is an established risk factor for lung cancer, acute respiratory disorders and probably heart disease.