Cancer survivors may not be getting the help they need to stop smoking

	Tweet

More than a quarter of cancer survivors who still smoke have not been advised to quit smoking by their health care providers in the last year, according to a study published by researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center in the current issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The findings suggest that health care providers – from doctors to dentists to nurses – are missing an opportunity to make a dramatic difference in the quality of life of their patients.

“While smoking cessation is difficult, it can play an important role in increasing cancer survivors’ quality of life,” says the paper’s lead author Elliot Coups, Ph.D., former associate member of Fox Chase Cancer Center’s faculty and a participant in the Fox Chase Keystone Program in Cancer Risk and Prevention. “Time and again, studies have shown that people really do listen to what is said at the doctor’s office in regards to smoking, so health care providers need to take advantage of this teachable moment.”

According to Coups, an associate professor of medicine at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, who recently joined the Division of Public Health Science at The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, the harmful effects of smoking have an important impact on cancer survivors. Smoking is known to adversely affect survivors’ quality of life, lower their projected life-spans, and to increase their risk for cardiovascular disease, as well as second, unrelated cancers. 

"With improvements in cancer medicine, we are seeing a growing population of cancer survivors who are returning to their primary physicians with their unique medical issues,” says Carolyn Heckman, Ph.D., assistant professor at Fox Chase Cancer Center and a co-author of the study. “Smoking cessation, in particular, needs to be addressed at every visit with a health care provider.”

Coups and his colleagues drew the data for this study from 1,825 participants in the 2005 National Health Interview Survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. The participants were survivors of an array of cancers, including cervical, colon, breast, melanoma, uterine and prostate cancer.

Nearly all of those surveyed reported visiting a health care provider within the previous year. Among the 18 percent of cancer survivors who reported currently smoking, nearly 65 percent indicated they wanted to quit smoking and 40 percent had tried to quit within the last year. The study found that when survivors try to quit smoking they, unfortunately, tend not to use evidence-based behavioral treatments or pharmacotherapies (such as nicotine patches or gum), which is consistent with the general population of smokers.

“This survey cannot tell us why these people did not get the help quitting that they needed or why some survivors didn’t receive smoking cessation advice from their health care providers,” Coups says. “Yet it should serve as encouragement to health care providers to talk about smoking with their cancer survivor patients, and not to assume that another provider is taking care of the problem. Survivors especially need guidance in using evidence-based smoking cessation treatments.”

###

Funding for this research comes from grants from the National Cancer Institute.

Founded in 1904 in Philadelphia as the nation’s first cancer hospital, Fox Chase became one of the first institutions to be designated a National Cancer Institute Comprehensive Cancer Center in 1974. Today, Fox Chase conducts a broad array of nationally competitive basic, translational, and clinical research, with special programs in cancer prevention, detection, treatment, and community outreach. For more information, visit Fox Chase’s web site at http://www.fccc.edu or call 1-888-FOX-CHASE or 1-888-369-2427.

Contact: Greg Lester

215-728-2753
Fox Chase Cancer Center

RELATED STORIES:
How sunlight causes skin cells to turn cancerous   Exercise eases fatigue in cancer patients on chemo   Tumor metastasis with a twist   Research Into Natural Killer Immune Cells Offers Avenues for Childhood Cancer Treatment   Cancer: The good news   New advances in the understanding of cancer progression   Insight: Cancer in Africa: Fighting a nameless enemy   Low Molecular Weight Heparin Use in Cancer Treatment   New tool to speed cancer therapy approval available   Is there an increased risk of other malignancies in patients with renal cell carcinoma?   Chemicals in Indoor Swimming Pools May Increase Cancer Risk   Study questions dioxin’s link to cancer   New Way to Make Stem Cells Avoids Risk of Cancer   Following cancer prevention guidelines lowers risk of death from cancer, heart disease, all causes   Radionuclide treatment against small tumors and metastases   Potent Inhibitor Blocks Tumors from Metastasizing   Why Some Tumors Don’t Respond to Radiation and Chemotherapy   Cancer risk linked to radiation exposure   How cancer cells can escape normal growth controls   Most cancer victims unaware of anti-angiogenesis   Cancer detected earlier, faster, with new medical imaging, Stanford study finds   Virus Attack on Cancer

Comments

[ + Post Your Own ]

Now you're in the public comment zone. What follows is not Armenian Medical Network's stuff; it comes from other people and we don't vouch for it. A reminder: By using this Web site you agree to accept our Terms of Service. Click here to read the Rules of Engagement.

There are no comments for this entry yet. [ + Comment here + ]