Smoking’s second cancers
From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.
Smoking is a well-known cancer risk factor. A study now indicates that cancer patients with a history of smoking may also face a higher risk of getting a new, second smoking-related cancer.
At the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Meredith Shiels saw this in data from over 15,000 survivors of lung, bladder, kidney and head and neck cancers. Patients were followed over time to see if they developed a second cancer.
Shiels says the survivors who smoked prior to first cancer diagnosis were more likely to develop another:
“The risk of a second smoking-related cancer was between 3.3 and 5.3 times higher for survivors who smoked 20 or more cigarettes per day, compared with survivors who never smoked.”
The study was in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Learn more at healthfinder.gov.
HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.