REVERSE SMOKING AND PALATAL MUCOSAL CHANGES IN FILIPINO WOMEN - EPIDEMIOLOGIC FEATURES

The habit of reverse smoking is practised in Various parts of the worl d including the Philippines. In this pilot, community-based, cross-sec tional study carried out in the region of Cabanatuan City in the Phili ppines, 61 Filipina reverse smokers and 30 Filipina conventional smoke rs were interviewed and clinically examined. Seven demographic variabl es and twelve habit variables were compared in the two study groups. T he majority (96.7 per cent) of reverse smokers exhibited palatal mucos al changes including leukoplakia, mucosal thickening, fissuring: pigme ntation, nodularity, erythema and ulceration. In comparison, only 26.7 per cent of conventional smokers exhibited mucosal changes predominan tly focal pigmentation acid mild erythema. This difference was statist ically significant at a X(2) value of 47.28 (p<.001). Analysis of the other variables indicated that the two study groups differed significa ntly with regard to age (p<.05), educational attainment (p<.01), use o f filtered versus non-filtered cigarettes (p<.001) and duration of smo king in years (p<.01).