Water pipe smoking and human oral cancers

Abstract

While cigarette smoking is recognized as an important risk factor in human oral cancers, the effect of water pipe smoking (WPS) on these cancers is not known. WPS is very common in the young adult population, especially in the Middle East, and has been associated with several respiratory problems. However, to date, there have been no studies examining the association between WPS and the progression of human oral cancers. Currently, the role of WPS in human oral cancers remains uncertain because of the limited number of investigations. This raises the question of whether WPS plays a significant role in the development of human oral carcinomas. In this paper, we propose the hypothesis that human oral normal epithelial cells are vulnerable to persistent WPS; moreover, WPS could play an important role in the initiation of a neoplastic transformation of human normal oral epithelial cells. Therefore, we believe that an international collaboration of epidemiological and clinical studies as well as cellular and molecular biology investigations is necessary to answer this important question.