Key points
- Tobacco use can cause cancer almost anywhere in your body.
- Quitting tobacco use lowers the risk of cancer.
Overview
Note: This page refers to commercial tobacco products that are made and sold by tobacco companies. It does not include traditional tobacco used by Indigenous groups for religious or ceremonial purposes.
If you were asked about tobacco and cancer, you might think of lung cancer. It's true that smoking cigarettes and being exposed to other people’s cigarette smoke cause almost 9 of every 10 deaths from lung cancer. But tobacco use can cause cancer almost anywhere in your body, including in the:
- Bladder
- Blood (acute myeloid leukemia)
- Cervix
- Colon and rectum
- Esophagus
- Kidney and renal pelvis
- Liver
- Lungs, bronchi, and trachea
- Mouth and throat
- Pancreas
- Stomach
- Voice box (larynx)
Quitting can be hard
The most important thing a person can do to avoid health risks from cancer is:
- If you don't use tobacco—don't start!
- If you do use tobacco—quit!
No matter how long you have used tobacco, quitting can reduce your risk for cancer and other chronic diseases. Smoking can cause cancer and then block your body from fighting it.
Many people who use tobacco products become addicted to nicotine, a drug found naturally in tobacco. Being addicted to nicotine can make it hard to quit. Most people who use tobacco try to quit several times before they succeed. Find proven steps that can help you quit at
Tips for quitting
"We did it. You can, too!" Three people who used to smoke share tips that helped them quit in For more help quitting, visit
“Talk to Someone” simulation
explains how smoking affects the body and gives advice about quitting.
How tobacco products cause cancer
Tobacco smoke
Smoke from cigarettes, cigars, and pipes has at least 69 chemicals that can cause cancer. Every time you breathe in that smoke, those chemicals get into your bloodstream, which carries the chemicals to all parts of your body. Many of these chemicals can damage your DNA, which controls how your body makes new cells and directs each kind of cell to do what it is made for. Damaged DNA can make cells grow differently from how they are supposed to. These unusual cells can turn into cancer.
Secondhand smoke
People who smoke are not the only people who can get cancer from tobacco smoke. People around them—their kids, partners, friends, coworkers, and others—breathe in that smoke, too, called secondhand smoke.
Smokeless tobacco products
Smokeless tobacco products, such as dipping and chewing tobacco, can cause cancer, too, including cancers of the esophagus, mouth and throat, and pancreas.
Vapes (electronic cigarettes)
E-cigarettes, also known as vapes, are battery-operated devices that heat a liquid and make an aerosol (small particles in the air). The liquid usually contains nicotine, the addictive drug in cigarettes and other tobacco products. People who use vapes inhale the aerosol into their lungs, and people nearby may also inhale it. The aerosol may contain other things that can hurt you, including cancer-causing chemicals.
There are no safe tobacco products, including e-cigarettes.
Number of new cancers associated with tobacco
ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø's Data Visualizations tool provides data on new in the United States. For example:
- More than 742,000 tobacco-associated cancers occurred in the United States in 2022, including about 429,000 among men and 313,000 among women.
- Lung cancer is the most common tobacco-associated cancer among both men and women.
Note: The data for tobacco-associated cancers are based only on cancer type and do not estimate the proportion of cancers caused by tobacco.