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When cancer patients stop smoking, they heal faster, experience fewer side effects from treatment and lower their chances of tumors returning. Now, top cancer hospitals are helping patients quit as evidence mounts that it’s never too late.
The newest research, reported Monday, shows lung cancer patients who stopped smoking gained nearly two years of life compared to those who continued to smoke.
“It is a huge effect,” said Dr. Mahdi Sheikh, who led the study for the World Health Organization’s cancer research agency in Lyon, France. In lung cancer, he said, quitting smoking is “as necessary as the treatments.”
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Doctors are developing better ways to help people addicted to nicotine quit
Cancer centers push patients to quit smoking
By Carla K. Johnson article
When cancer patients stop smoking, they heal faster, experience fewer side effects from treatment, and lower their chances of tumors returning. Now, top cancer hospitals are helping patients quit as evidence mounts that it s never too late.
The newest research, reported Monday, shows lung cancer patients who stopped smoking gained nearly two years of life compared to those who continued to smoke. It is a huge effect, said Dr. Mahdi Sheikh, who led the study for the World Health Organization s cancer research agency in Lyon, France. In lung cancer, he said, quitting smoking is as necessary as the treatments.
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“It’s the biggest reason I’ve ever had in my life to quit,” said Preston Browning, an electrician in Ridgetop, Tennessee, who quit cigarettes last month while recovering from cancer surgery.
Browning, now 20 years old, had smoked a pack a day since he was 14. He credits the stop-smoking drug Chantix and support from tobacco treatment specialists at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. Nurse Lesa Abney listened to Browning’s reasons for smoking he described smoking as “me time” and “a little reward” and suggested strategies he could use: Eat breakfast instead of lighting up each morning. Reach for a toothpick after lunch. Treat yourself with dessert.
Never Too Late: Cancer Centers Push Patients to Quit Smoking medscape.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from medscape.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.