pack-year

British

noun

a measure of the amount of cigarettes a person has smoked over an extended period, equal to one packet of 20 every day for one year

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Preventive Services Task Force issued its first-ever lung cancer screening guidelines: Anyone 55 or older with at least a 30 pack-year smoking history should be screened annually with low-dose CT.

From Salon • Feb. 3, 2024

But rather than lower the age and pack-year requirements specifically for Black smokers, as Aldrich and her colleagues had advised, the task force loosened those criteria for all smokers, regardless of race.

From Salon • Feb. 3, 2024

Barry added that, in terms of screening eligibility, dropping the pack-year threshold from 30 to 20 benefitted the Black high-risk population more than the corresponding non-Hispanic White population.

From Salon • Feb. 3, 2024

But “unfortunately, lowering the age and pack-year requirements alone does not guarantee increased equity in lung cancer screening,” wrote Dr. Yolonda Colson and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital.

From Seattle Times • Mar. 9, 2021

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023