Radioactive smoke: tobacco

Abstract

While lung cancer has been an illness which is rarely being identified since the beginning of 20th Century, its frequency has increased in parallel with the increase in smoking status and it has become the most common type of cancer in the world. Although cadmium, acetone arsenic etc. are known the smoke components causing the lung cancer, the recent facts in this issue have showed that Polonium-210 and Lead-210 in the smoke are also very important smoke components causing the lung cancer as well. In this paper, while the radioactive isotopes in the smoke, transition pathways of these isotopes to tobacco, transition mechanisms from smoke to lung are discussed; biological doses in the lung and hazardous of smoking are expressed.