The aim was to examine the association between smoking cessation and prognosis in smoking-related cancer as it is unclear that cessation reduces mortality.
In this retrospective cohort study from 1999 to 2013, we assessed the association between cessation during the first year after diagnosis and all-cause and cancer-specific mortality.
Of 2882 lung, 757 upper aero-digestive tract (UAT) and 1733 bladder cancer patients 27%, 29% and 21% of lung, UAT and bladder cancer patients quit smoking. In lung cancer patients that quit, all-cause mortality was significantly lower (HR: 0.82 (0.74-0.92), while cancer-specific mortality (HR: 0.89 (0.76-1.04) and death due to index cancer (HR: 0.90 (0.77-1.05) were non-significantly lower. In UAT cancer, all-cause mortality (HR: 0.81 (0.58-1.14), cancer-specific mortality (HR: 0.84 (0.48-1.45), and death due to index cancer (HR: 0.75 (0.42-1.34) were non-significantly lower. There was no evidence of an association between quitting and mortality in bladder cancer. The HRs were 1.02 (0.81-1.30) for all-cause, 1.23 (0.81-1.86) for cancer specific, and 1.25 (0.71-2.20) for death due to index cancer. These showed a non-significantly lower risk in sensitivity analyses.
People with lung and possibly UAT cancer who quit smoking have a lower risk of mortality than people who continue smoking.British Journal of Cancer advance online publication, 12 September 2017; doi:10.1038/bjc.2017.179 www.bjcancer.com.
British journal of cancer. 2017 Sep 12 [Epub ahead of print]
C Koshiaris, P Aveyard, J Oke, R Ryan, L Szatkowski, R Stevens, A Farley
Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies, University of Oxford, New Radcliffe House, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG, UK., Institute of Applied Health Research, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK., Division of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Nottingham, Clinical Sciences Building, Nottingham City Hospital, Nottingham NG5 1PB, UK.