A peer-reviewed report published in Carcinogenesis this week concluded that nicotine-based e-cigarettes are “likely” to cause lung and oral cancers, based on a synthesis of more than 100 studies covering animal experiments, chemical analyses, and human biomarker research. It said it has “reached the most unambiguous conclusion to date about the cancer risk posed by e-cigarettes: nicotine-based vapes are likely to cause cancers of the lung and oral cavity.”
The paper was led by Adjunct Professor Bernard Stewart AM of University of New South Wales, with co-authors from several Australian institutions including the University of Queensland and University of Sydney. Rather than presenting new experimental data, the authors reinterpret existing literature to argue that converging biological and mechanistic evidence is already strong enough to support a causal cancer risk conclusion, even in the absence of long-term population mortality studies.
However, the findings come from a synthesis paper, meaning conclusions depend heavily on which studies are included and how evidence is weighted, rather than new primary research.
