Vaping is likely to cause oral and lung cancer, according to a comprehensive review of over 100 studies of the effects of nicotine-based e-cigarettes, published this week in the journal, Carcinogenesis.

Carcinogenicity was evident in human studies that monitored biomarkers of harm, including DNA damage, oxidative stress, and “epigenetic change and inflammation in oral and respiratory tissue”, according to the researchers, who hail from a range of Australian universities.

Meanwhile, studies on mice showed that they developed lung tumours after exposure to vape aerosols.

The researchers focused on studies from 2017 of people who only used nicotine-based e-cigarettes or on studies that compared smokers and vapers, and excluded studies that involved people who used both tobacco and e-cigarettes.

“Though direct epidemiological evidence of cancer causation takes time to accumulate, carcinogenicity of e-cigarettes is evident from different types of investigation,” the study concluded.

“To our knowledge, this review is the most definitive determination that those who vape are at increased risk of cancer compared to those who don’t,” according to co-author Bernard Stewart from the University of New South Wales.

In a commentary published alongside the research, Stewart and co-author Freddy Sitas note that it took a long time before the harms of smoking were recognised. The first study to report a link between smoking and tuberculosis was published in 1886, yet smoking was only definitively linked to lung cancer in 1964. 

“Though smoking was once given the benefit of doubt, the same should not now be accorded to vaping given the strength of relevant carcinogenicity data,” they write.

The tobacco industry has promoted vaping as a tool to help smokers to quit, while promoting e-cigarettes to young people who have never smoked.

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