Metastatic non-small cell and non-smokers are more responsive to chemotherapy

Patients with lung cancer non-small cell who never smoked in their lives have a better overall survival and respond better to chemotherapy than patients who are former or current smokers, by a study published in the edition of the journal "Cancer".

Smoking is the biggest risk factor for lung cancer. The survival rate at five years for this cancer does not exceed 20%. The most common form of lung cancer is non-small cell (NSCLC). Those who survive have an annual 4% risk of developing another tumor.

This information may well be known to patients, they are still likely to smoke. And their doctors have few arguments to convince them that continued smoking has a negative impact on their chemotherapy or radiotherapy, the work on the subject was not able to clarify this.

In the new study, led by Anne S. Tsao, the Cancer Center M. D. Anderson of the University of Texas in Houston, researchers reviewed the medical records of 1370 patients with NSCLC lung cancer, receiving chemotherapy alone or in combination with radiotherapy, to determine the existence of a link between smoking, response to treatment and survival.

They found that patients who had never smoked in their lives responded better to chemotherapy, it is also accompanied by a lesser-disease progression and overall survival were higher compared to older and current smokers.

Among other assumptions, the researchers suggest that non-smokers would present less damage to their DNA, tend to develop less disease may affect their survival and have a better preserved lung function than smokers.

They believe that "the continuation of efforts to prevent smoking the first cigarette is a major public health", which means to increase the grants to chemoprevention for smokers and the development of protocols for primary prevention of smoking.