Lung cancer surgery does not deter smokers

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

Half of patients having lung cancer surgery go back to smoking, according to new study.
The link between smoking and lung cancer is well known. You might think that having surgery for lung cancer would put people off smoking. This is not the case, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine. They studied 154 patients being treated for early stage lung cancer and found that nearly half of them started smoking again within a year of surgery.

As you might expect, the patients who only quit on the day of their surgery were the first to go back to smoking. These were the people who found smoking more pleasurable. Previous studies have shown that many patients with non-small cell lung cancer carry on smoking. This study is the first to include patients believed to be highly dependent on nicotine. It also used saliva sampling to confirm smoking habits at three, six and 12 months after surgery.

The researchers say that 43 per cent of the group smoked at some point after surgery and 37 per cent were still smoking at 12 months. Strangely, perhaps, it was those with a higher education level who were more likely to smoke after surgery. The findings suggest that smoking is an addiction that over-rides common sense. It would therefore be worthwhile offering lung cancer surgery patients intensive support to quit smoking. Surgery alone is not a deterrent.

Source
Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention December 2006

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