Breast Cancer Prevention: Chronic Smoking Linked To Increased Risk of Death From Breast Cancer

Smoking has been linked to worsening several illnesses like lung disease, liver illness and asthma to name a few. However, apart from the aforementioned diseases,  smoking has a lethal effect on patients with breast cancer. A recent study suggests that chronic smoking reduces the chances of survival for women with breast cancer, FOX News has learned.

The report reveals that breast cancer is the most common malignancy among women. One in every nine women is likely to develop it, according to the National Institutes of Health. As women age, their risk increases, from 1 in 227 when women are in their 30s to 1 in 26 at their 70s. Some other factors that can increase the risk are obesity,  inactivity, alcohol use and early menstruation.

A Japanese study found out that among over 800 women afflicted with breast cancer, those who smoked for more than two decades increase their risk of dying from the said illness or any cause, for at least three times, compared to women who never smoke, according to Reuters.

There are other studies that explore how smoking influence breast cancer patients' survival; however,  this is the first study to assess the impact of the duration of smoking on outcomes for women suffering from the said type of tumor, according to co-author Dr. Masaaki Kawai, a breast oncologist at Miyagi Cancer Center Hospital in Japan, in an email sent to Reuters Health.

In the said study, Kawaii and colleagues monitored 848 women who were under medication at the Miyagi Cancer Center Hospital between 1997 and 2007 for newly diagnosed breast cancer.

Women, who confessed that they were smokers, were younger when they were diagnosed with breast cancer (49 years old on average) compared to women who were former smokers (53 years old) and nonsmokers (58 years old). 

Half of the women in the study were followed for at least seven years. The researchers observed 170 casualties from all causes and 132 deaths from breast cancer, Huffington Post has learned.

Researchers also examined the effect of exposure to second-hand smoke among women with smoking husbands or those who formerly smoke but found out that it has no significant impact on the women's risk of death.

One limitation of the study is that it depends on the patients' accurate report of their exposure to cigarettes. They also lack the data on second-hand smoke that were not from the patients' spouses. Moreover, the study does not determine whether smoking causes breast cancer.

Even so, the study points the risk smoking presents to women with breast cancer, said Peggy Reynolds, a researcher at the Cancer Prevention Institute of California and Stanford University School of Medicine.

"There are now quite a few studies suggesting that active smokers diagnosed with breast cancer have poorer survival - not to mention accumulating evidence that smokers may have a greater risk of developing breast cancer," Reynolds said.

The evidence is not conclusive, but it should be enough to motivate breast cancer patients who smoke to quit the habit. 

"Regardless of whether or not a woman has breast cancer, quitting smoking is likely to be the best lifestyle change a woman can make to improve her health," according to Mia Gaudet, Strategic Director of Breast and Gynecologic Research at the American Cancer Society in Atlanta via an email.