A latest US study has revealed that roughly half of the deaths from 12 smoking-related cancers are linked to cigarette smoking.

Researchers during the study found that the largest proportions of deaths associated with smoking were due to lung, bronchus, trachea and larynx.

About half of fatalities from tumors of the oral cavity, esophagus and bladder were also tied to cigarettes, the study found.

Study's lead author Rebecca Siegel, a researcher at the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, said, "The bottom line is that while we've made a lot of progress against the tobacco epidemic in the United States, there's still much work to do".

Siegel and her colleagues during the study estimated that out of 345,962 cancer deaths in 2011 among US adults 35 and older, 167,805 were associated with smoking.

Furthermore to estimate the proportion of cancer deaths due to smoking, researchers used a standard formula to calculate the fractions of cases of specific cancer types that would not have occurred if not smoking. They then analyzed the data collected from the national surveys and in-person interviews asking people about their health history and tobacco habits.

Seeing the smoking habits in the population and the proportion of cancer cases attributable to smoking, the researchers estimated that 125,799 lung, bronchus and trachea cancer deaths, representing 80% of the total, were linked to smoking.

On the other hand 50% of deaths were linked to esophagus tumors and 45% of deaths from bladder malignancies. The researchers also linked smoking with 17% of kidney cancer deaths, 20% of stomach cancer deaths, 22% of cervical cancer deaths and 24% of liver and bile duct cancer deaths in 2011.

Researchers in the JAMA Internal Medicine stated that the only limitation of the study is that the survey and interview participants were generally more educated and less racially diverse than the U. S. population as a whole.