An estimated 2.4 million cases of tobacco-related cancers were reported in the U.S. from 1999 to 2004, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Lung and bronchial cancers represented about 50 percent of the diagnoses, the CDC said today in its report, the "most comprehensive assessment to date" of tobacco-related cancer cases, as the agency called it.

The CDC added that smokers are also susceptible of developing cancers of the stomach, larynx, mouth and pharynx, esophagus, pancreas, bladder and kidney, Reuters reported.

As stated by Matthew McKenna, director of the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health, "tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of disease and premature death in the United States and the most prominent cause of cancer."

"The tobacco-use epidemic causes a third of the cancers in America," he said in a press statement.

Secondhand smoke, know as environmental tobacco smoke, also leads to death. Among the 438,000 people tobacco kills a year, 38,000 are non-smokers who just inhale tobacco smoke from the others, the report showed.

The data, which was published in a special issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, offers “additional, strong evidence of the serious harm related to tobacco," Sherri Stewart, the lead author, asserted.

The team of researchers looked at cancer surveys, as well as registries, which included tobacco-related information about 92% of the U.S. inhabitants.

Other results of the report disclosed that cancer cases due to tobacco were most widespread among blacks, non-Hispanic, and men.