Lung cancer patients who quit smoking after diagnosis live about TWO YEARS ...

Lung cancer patients who quit smoking after diagnosis live about TWO YEARS ...
Lung cancer patients who quit smoking after diagnosis live about TWO YEARS ...

Lung cancer patients who quit smoking upon diagnoses live two years longer on average than those who continue smoking, according to a study. 

Researchers are hoping that patients realize that it is not too late to potentially extend their lives.

In the U.S., many cancer centers offer proven quit strategies: phone counseling, nicotine patches and pills that ease the urge to smoke. 

More cancer doctors are talking to their patients about quitting.

Researchers from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization performed the study is Moscow, Russia.

WHO researchers found that lung cancer patients who quit smoking can live up to two years longer than those who continue smoking

WHO researchers found that lung cancer patients who quit smoking can live up to two years longer than those who continue smoking

They recruited 517 adults in early stages of a lung cancer diagnoses.

For an average of seven years each, participants were routinely interviewed by the research team to determine how often they smoked, and other medical and lifestyle changes that may have occurred.

Researchers found that 45 percent of people who were diagnosed with lung cancer quit smoking cigarettes, and those who did lived longer, lived longer with out lung cancer and had a longer time until death by nearly two years. 

The effect held up regardless of tumor stage, how much the patient smoked or how long after diagnosis they quit, researchers reported in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. 

'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.' 

'Doctors at every visit should encourage their lung cancer patients to quit smoking,' Sheikh said. 

For some patients, the shock of a cancer diagnosis can be highly motivating.

'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.

'If it wasn´t for Lesa, I think it would have been harder,' Browning said.

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