• Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 211166, China.
• Department of Critical Care Medicine, Wuxi People's Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing Medical University, Wuxi, Jiangsu 214023, China.

Diet/sugar-free soft drinks are considered to be healthier than regular soft drinks. However, few studies have examined the relationship between the types of soft drinks (regular and diet/sugar-free) and lung cancer (LC)/all-cancer (AC) risk. In this study, we comprehensively assessed the influence of the type of soft drink consumption on LC/AC risk based on the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards and competing risks Fine-Gray regression models adjusted for relevant confounders were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and subdistribution HRs for different types of soft drink consumption. In the PLCO population, female subgroup, and the ever/current smoker subgroup, consumption of both regular and diet soft drinks was associated with a significantly reduced risk of LC compared with no soft drinks at all. For the non-lung cancer (NLC) risk, consumption of only diet soft drinks had a significant positive association for the total population and female subgroup. Based on our findings, it was suggested that partial replacement of regular soft drinks with diet soft drinks might be beneficial to LC prevention, especially for females and ever/current smokers. Additionally, completely replacing regular soft drinks with diet soft drinks might be detrimental to NLC prevention, especially for females.