Patients with head and neck cancer who
continue to smoke while receiving radiation treatments have a much lower
long-term survival rate than those who do not smoke, according to a new study. The
study was published in the February 2011 issue of the International Journal ofRadiation Oncology/Biology/Physics.
In the study of patients with squamous
cell carcinoma of the head and neck, 23 % of 101 patients who continued to
smoke were still alive five years after treatment, compared with 55 percent of
patients who quit smoking before they began radiation treatment.
Furthermore, 53 of the patients who
continued to smoke suffered cancer recurrence, as compared with 40 patients in
those who stopped smoking. Those who kept smoking also experienced more
treatment-related complications such as the hoarseness,difficulty in eating and
scar formation.
The poorer long tern outcomes for
persistent smokers were found both in those who had radiation alone and in
those who also had surgery prior to radiation.
