Smoking Cessation in Cancer Survivors

It has been estimated that there are 25 million cancer survivors around the world. Continued smoking after a cancer diagnosis is shown to have adverse effects for cancer survivors on overall survival, treatment effect and quality of life. Some researchers indicate that cancer diagnosis is an important moment to perform effective smoking cessation interventions. The objective of this study is to closely evaluate factors associated with smoking cessation in cancer survivors, which is not well studied currently. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999-2004 survey was used in this study and 1,381 cancer survivors were recruited. All analyses were weighted to account for the complex sampling design. Around 51% of cancer survivors smoked when they were diagnosed with cancer and only 38% of them quit smoking after their cancer diagnosis. The factors associated with smoking cessation after a cancer diagnosis were evaluated using a logistic regression model. We observed that older cancer survivors tended to quit after a cancer diagnosis (OR=2.0, 95%CI=1.6-2.5, in 10-year increments). Race disparity was observed in smoking cessation in cancer survivors. Compared to whites, African Americans were more likely to quit smoking (OR=2.7, 95%CI=1.3-5.7) and Hispanics were less likely to quit smoking (OR=0.4, 95%CI=0.2-0.8) after a cancer diagnosis. No significant differences were observed in education, income or marital status. Custom smoking cessation interventions are needed in order to effectively decrease smoking rates in the growing number of cancer survivors. This study suggests that smoking cessation interventions should target young, white and Hispanic cancer survivors.