. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2009 Jan 1.

Published in final edited form as: Eur J Cancer. 2007 Nov 19;44(1):100–109. doi: 10.1016/j.ejca.2007.10.015

Table 5.

Relation between smoking cessation and mortality

	Years since quitting among former smokers

Cause of death	Current smoker	<10 years	≥10 years	Never smoker
All causes
No. of deaths, whole cohort (n=7982)	2697	702	638	3945
Multivariable RR^a, whole cohort	1 (Referent)	0.91 (0.84–0.99)	0.65 (0.60–0.71)	0.59 (0.55–0.62)
Cancer
No. of deaths, whole cohort (n=2710)	1037	222	180	1271
Multivariable RR ^a, whole cohort	1 (Referent)	0.77 (0.67–0.89)	0.50 (0.42–0.58)	0.47 (0.43–0.52)
Ischemic heart disease
No. of deaths, whole cohort (n=1664)	565	159	141	799
Multivariable RR ^a, whole cohort	1 (Referent)	0.96 (0.80–1.1)	0.66 (0.55–0.80)	0.60 (0.53–0.67)
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
No. of deaths, whole cohort (n=378)	196	59	38	85
Multivariable RR ^a, whole cohort	1 (Referent)	1.0 (0.75–1.3)	0.50 (0.35–0.71)	0.20 (0.15–0.27)

Relative risk (95% confidence interval) estimated from a multivariable-adjusted proportional hazards model adjusted for age (years), gender (males, females), dialect group (Cantonese, Hokkien), year of recruitment, level of education (no formal education, primary school, secondary school or above), daily ethanol intake (g), and h/week of moderate physical activity (none, ½ to 3 h/week, 4 h/week or more).