Psychosomatic Medicine 34:395-404 (1972)
© 1972 American Psychosomatic Society

Self-Frustration, Nighttime Smoking and Lung Cancer

¹ Department of Psychiatry, University of Virginia Hospital, Charlottesville, Virginia 22901

Address for reprint requests: D Wilfred Abse, MD, Department of Psychiatry, University of Virginia Medical Center, Charlottesville, Va 22901.

All together, 65 patients suffering from lung disease were studied. Of these, 36 had cancer of the lung and the other 29 had noncancerous lung disease. The cancer patients reported more frequent nighttime cigarette smoking. It was also found that cancer patients had been smoking for a longer period and had been smoking more cigarettes daily than the other patients. Nonetheless, analysis of the data revealed that nighttime smoking was not related to duration and daily frequency of smoking. The further observation that younger cancer patients smoked more frequently at night than did older cancer patients, in the context of the findings just noted, suggests that the age of onset of lung cancer is significantly influenced by nighttime smoking. The psychiatric interviews further revealed that the lung cancer patients were highly sensitive to the issue of nighttime smoking and that this sensitivity was especially conspicuous when interviews were conducted by a nonsmoking physician. It is therefore necessary to take into consideration this sensitivity when investigating the possibility that the habit of smoking at night may hasten the onset of lung cancer in middle-aged men who have an impaired capacity for emotional gratification.