Influence of smoking on survival in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is the most common cancer arisingf rom the upper part of the throat behind the nose and near the base of skull. Cigarette smoking has previously turned out to be a fairly important risk factor for developing NPC. To determine the influence of it on survival of patients with established NPC, we respectively evaluated the associations between smoking status, quantity of smoking (pack-years) and survival rates in 1849 NPC and long-term follow-up data. We found that patients with a history of smoking, regardless of whether they ceased smoking for one or more years, have poorer survival than those who never smoked. Importantly, we also observed a significant dose-response relationship between pack-years smoked and increase in risk of death or progression: the higher the pack-years, the lower the survival rate.In our study, those who smoked heavily were 3.3-fold more likely to die, 2.5-fold more likely to have their disease progress, and 2.7-fold more likely to have their disease spread to distant organs, compared with those who did not smoke.

 

Hence, cigarette smoking does lower the chance of survival for NPC patients, with a dose-response relationship. We strongly recommend that people, including those with NPC, do not smoke

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliographic Reference:

Ouyang PY et al.: "Prognostic impact of cigarette smoking on the survival of patients with established nasopharyngeal carcinoma", Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2013 Dec;22(12):2285-94

 

 

 

 

Fang-Yun Xie
Department of Radiation Oncology, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou, China