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Reuters [08/30/99]

Smoking could be a cause of breast cancer which is killing a growing number of women around the world, a Swiss medical expert said Monday.

The expert, Alfredo Morabia, told a two-day meeting of international specialists on the disease that no direct link between its appearance and cigarettes had yet been established.

Proving that there was a link would be a great step forward in prevention of breast cancer, which in Geneva alone hits one in 10 of all women, Morabia said.

Doctors were currently unable to give patients any real advice when asked how to avoid contracting the disease.

``So far, all we know about its causes are factors over which we can take no preventive action, like genetics and the age at which a woman has a child,'' he said.

It would be a major breakthrough in saving lives if researchers could finally establish that smoking also played a role, the Swiss expert declared.

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