Jump to full article: Reuters, 2002-08-01
Intro: Cats exposed to many years of secondhand smoke have a higher risk of developing a deadly form of lymphoma than cats living in tobacco-free homes, new study findings show.
Dr. Elizabeth R. Bertone of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and her colleagues found that cats that shared a household with a smoker at any time in their lives were more than twice as likely to develop malignant lymphoma than cats that never lived with a smoker.
Researchers have suggested that malignant lymphoma in domestic cats may serve as a model for another type of lymphoma in humans, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Previous studies have found conflicting evidence as to whether smoking is linked to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in humans, but the results from the current study suggest that the link may, in fact, exist.
"Our study suggests that exposure to household environmental tobacco smoke may increase the risk of malignant lymphoma in pet cats, " Bertone and her colleagues write.
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