Smoking to lessen the lives of women with breast cancer

Women who were treated for breast cancer and went on with their smoking habit are less likely to survive than the patients who never smoked at all or those who have stopped smoking according to a research. The research, however, suggests that it will never be too late to stop smoking to increase the cancer survival rate. Women who have stopped smoking during the time of the diagnosis show a much better, they have shown better results than those who went on with their smoking habit after being diagnosed. This is according to the study made by R. Passarelli, he is a cancer epidemiologist at a University in California. The smokers, however, also had a high possibility of dying from respiratory types of cancer or from a heart disease according to the researchers.

The research was published this January in the Oncology Journal. They have checked the data from more than 20,000 women. These women were between the ages of 20-79 and they were all white. All of them were diagnosed with breast cancer between the years 1988-2008.  Just 6 years after being diagnosed, the researchers made a study involving 4,500 women; they asked the women about their status in smoking. While conducting a follow up or around 12 years, most of the women nearly around 6,800 of them were dead that includes the 2,900 deaths because of breast cancer according to the study.

Smoking and breast cancer among women

Those who are actively smoking 1 year before being diagnosed with breast cancer were 25% more likely than those who never smoked to die from the said cancer. They were also likely to die from other diseases like respiratory disease, cardio disease & respiratory cancer to name some.  The researchers made a comparison to the 10% of the women who never stopped smoking after being diagnosed those who never smoked at all. They have discovered that 72% were more likely to die of breast cancer.  Subsequently, the researchers were able to compare those who have stopped smoking after the diagnoses with those who went on with their habit.

Those who stopped were 33% likely to die from breast cancer while making the follow-ups, even if the researchers said that the dissimilarity wasn’t statistically important.  During the onset of the study, 20% of the women were presently smoking. This went down by 10% during the 6 years follow up according to the study. The result is not amusing anymore, according Dr. Jones. She happened to be the one to check on the diagnosis. On the other hand, Dr. Jones is also a clinical assistant professor of the surgical oncology in a cancer center in California; she said that the reach of the risk of cancer death for those who smoked is quite serious