In France, tobacco is the leading cause of cancer and is responsible for 90% of lung cancer and 73,000 premature deaths. But this new study should again scare nicotine lovers. Indeed, smokers are more likely to develop a second cancer, according to the results of a new analysis carried out for the US government and published in the medical journal Journal of Clinical Oncology.
The researchers looked at medical data from five epidemiological cohorts that included 2,552 patients with stage I lung cancer, 6,386 of the bladder, 3,179 of the kidney and 2,967 with a brain tumor.
Smokers with cancer of the lung, bladder, kidney or with a brain tumor have a 5-fold risk of suffering from a second cancer compared to patients who have never smoked according to the results of this meta-analysis.
“The link between the smoking and the second cancer was comparable to the link between smoking and the first cancer, since smokers are five times more likely than non-smokers to develop cancer, ”explains Meredith S. Shiels, researcher in the Division of National Cancer Institute of Cancer Epidemiology and co-author of the study.
This risk also exists for former smokers, even if it decreases over the years after the last cigarette smoked.
“While survival improves for a number of patients with tobacco-related cancers, cigarette smoking may increase the risk of developing a second nicotine-related cancer among these survivors,” recalls Meredith S. Shiels. “This paradox points to the importance of smoking cessationc all cancer patients ”.
Especially since, continuing to smoke after a cancer diagnosis also increases the risk of death. The California Cancer Prevention Institute revealed in 2013 that men who continued or took up smoking after being diagnosed with cancer had a 59% increased risk of death compared to those who quit, all types of cancer or types of treatment combined.
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