Comparison of smoking habits between patients with surgically confirmed herniated lumbar and cervical disc disease and controls.

There have been numerous studies that implicate cigarette smoking as a risk factor for the development of back pain or disc disease. The purpose of this article is to review patients who underwent surgery for cervical or lumbar radiculopathy and to investigate the relationship between cigarette smoking and development of surgical disc disease. A cigarette smoking study of 205 surgical patients with lumbar and cervical disc diseases was done, with the surgical patients compared to 205 age-sex-matched inpatient controls during 1987-1988. This study was conducted at the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There were 163 patients with lumbar disc disease and 42 patients with cervical disc disease. The ratio of men to women was 1.5:1 for lumbar disc and 2.5:1 for cervical disc disease. Smoking history (current and ex-smokers) was strikingly increased in both prolapsed lumbar intervertebral disc (56% vs. 37% of controls, p = 0.00029) and cervical disc disease (64.3% vs. 37% of controls, p = 0.0025). Calculated relative risks for smokers were 2.2 for lumbar disc and 2.9 for cervical disc diseases. This association between cigarette smoking and disc disease was more significant when comparing between current smokers versus nonsmokers (p = 0.000011 for lumbar disc disease, and p = 0.00064 for cervical disc disease). Relative risks for current smokers were 3.0 for lumbar disc and 3.9 for cervical disc diseases. This correlation was significant for both males (p = 0.000068 for lumbar disc disease, p = 0.043 for cervical disc disease) and females (p = 0.018 for lumbar disc disease, p = 0.006 for cervical disc disease).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)