What is a reasonable threshold for worries about health risks?

摘要

We were surprised by the Invited Commentary on our article by Chow and Dev-ereaux. The review we presented failed to find evidence of risk across all existing studies of pre-surgery smoking cessation. We also examined the theory that underpinned concerns that stopping smoking shortly before surgery can be dangerous and reported that the notion that ex-smokers cough less and produce more sputum is not supported by the facts. The Invited Commentary repeats some of the caveats we made in the article regarding the limited scope and quality of available data, but unlike the article, it actually concludes that stopping smoking shortly before surgery is not safe after all. We fail to see the logic of this conclusion.