After cancer, caregivers should consider advising patients to quit smoking

Among smokers patients with a diagnosis of cancer for at least a year, over a quarter have at least consulted a health professional in the year without seeing advise cessation, leading to a U.S. study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine (JGIM).

Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death as well as general cancer, remember Elliot Coups, of Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, and colleagues.

However, tobacco consumption in patients after cancer treatment, there is little attention, do they put forward. "Between a half and three quarters of people in whom cancer is discovered smoke, and nearly half of them will continue even after the diagnosis," they warn.

In the United States, more than 11 million people have survived cancer, "a number that has increased for several decades and continues to grow," the researchers said, while stressing the need to conduct research and clinic psychosocial and medical needs of the most vulnerable population.

"Every visit with a health care professional, the patient should be advised to stop smoking," said Carolyn Heckman, one of the authors of the article.

This is certainly not the result that emerges from their study. Using data from the 2005 NHIS survey on 1,825 adults with a diagnosis of cancer within one year before the study, researchers assessed the extent to which health professionals are enquerraient smoking status of these patients and advised them to quit smoking.

Among the respondents, 1% reported having stopped smoking during the past year, while 17% said they were still smoking. Among these, 65% said they would stop and 40% reported having tried in the year.

Almost all participants had consulted a health professional in the past year. Among the 310 patients still smoking, nearly three quarters were advised to stop smoking, often a doctor (97% smokers), a dentist (15%), or (e) Nursing (e) (6%).

A major tobacco consumption (at least one pack of cigarettes per day), a high number of comorbidities, high psychological distress increased the likelihood of being addressed as a board.

"A considerable number of opportunities to recommend to a patient to stop smoking are missed," the researchers regret.