Quitting Smoking Doubles Survival in Early Stage Lung Cancer

'Dramatic' results show that it's never too late to kick the habit, experts say

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter

Related Encyclopedia • Acne • Adenocarcinoma of the Lung and Brain Metastases • Angina Pectoris • Angiogram More... Related Healthscout Videos Growing Lungs in the Lab: Medicine's Next Big Thing? From Belly to Breast: Rebuilding After Cancer Shaving off Cancer Fluorescent Medicine for Brain Tumors More... Related Animations • Breast Self-Exam Video • Colon Cancer More... Related Drug Information • Epogen • Iressa • Procrit • Topamax More... Related News Articles • Damage of 'False-Positive' Mammograms Overlooked: Study • Smoking Scenes in Movies Light Up Smokers' Brains • Gene Test Might Predict Colon Cancer's Return • Breast Cancer Radiation Before 1984 Tied to Heart Disease More...

THURSDAY, Jan. 21 (HealthDay News) -- Quitting smoking after a diagnosis of early stage lung cancer doubles the odds that a patient will live another five years, a new study finds.

"The results are quite dramatic. I don't think anybody would have expected such a dramatic difference. It's incredible," said Dr. Norman Edelman, chief medical officer for the American Lung Association. "The important caveat is that this is early lung cancer."

Text Continues Below

---

Early stage lung malignancies can have cure rates of 50 percent to 60 percent, Edelman noted. The tragedy is that very few lung cancers (perhaps 20 percent, the authors stated) are diagnosed at this early stage.

The new findings are published in the Jan. 21 online edition of BMJ.

According to an accompanying journal editorial, fewer than one-third of all patients with lung cancer are still alive just one year after diagnosis.

Of course, the best way to prevent lung cancer is to never smoke, or to quit if you do smoke. People who quit smoking have a dramatically lower incidence of being diagnosed with lung cancer over the life span, experts note.

But it's been less clear how quitting smoking might affect patient prognosis after a diagnosis has already been handed down, the study authors said.

To find out, the British researchers pored over data from 10 prior observational studies looking at the impact of quitting smoking post-diagnosis.

"We used meta-analysis to summarize their findings," said study lead author, Amanda Parsons, a Ph.D. candidate at the U.K. Centre for Tobacco Control Studies at the University of Birmingham College of Medicine and Dentistry. "Quitting smoking was associated with around double the chance of surviving at any time point compared to people who continued to smoke."

Only 29 to 33 percent of early stage lung cancer patients who kept smoking survived for five years, while 63 to 70 percent of patients who quit survived that long, Parsons stated.

Page:  1 | 2 | Next >>