'Quit Smoking' Benefits: Breast Cancer Survival Rate Better in Former Smokers

A new study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology on Jan. 25 suggests that quitting smoking among breast cancer survivors could spell the difference between living longer and dying sooner.

The researchers found out that breast cancer survivors who went on with their smoking ways after diagnosis had a 33-percent higher risk of being sent to an early grave due to breast cancer, according to a news release from EurekAlert.

"Our study shows the consequences facing both active and former smokers with a history of breast cancer," said first author Michael Passarelli, PhD, a cancer epidemiologist at the UCSF School of Medicine. "About one in ten breast cancer survivors smoke after their diagnosis. For them, these results should provide additional motivation to quit."

In the study, women who were diagnosed with localized or invasive breast cancer between 1988 and 2008 were divided into four groups: women who never smoked; women who smoked and quit before diagnosis; women who smoked and quit after diagnosis; and women who continued to smoke after diagnosis. They were asked about their smoking habits and their age when they started smoking.

The findings show that those who smoke one year prior to their diagnosis have a greater chance of dying from breast cancer, respiratory cancer, other respiratory diseases or cardiovascular diseases compared to those who were not smokers. And, those who were long-term smokers, heavy smokers, or smokers who quit for less than five years before breast cancer diagnosis have the greatest chances of death due to breast cancer.

"Smoking cessation programs should be considered part of cancer therapy," Passarelli also added. "Recent policy statements from leading research and clinical organizations are now urging oncologists to be as aggressive in getting their patients to stop smoking as they are in treating the cancer."

According to a statistics from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), breast cancer is still the most common cancer among women of any race or ethnicity in the United States today, not counting some kinds of skin cancer.

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin, Dartmouth College and Harvard University conducted this Collaborative Breast Cancer Study on more than 20,000 women with breast cancer. This is considered as one of the largest studies related to the survival outcomes when it comes to those women with a history of breast cancer and their smoking habits.

The study is a pioneer in terms of assessing the smoking habits of the patients both before and after diagnosis. Meanwhile, some of the limitations of the study include the lack of consideration for second-hand smoke exposure and the exclusion of hormone receptor status of breast tumors.