Smoking cessation and lung cancer: never too late to quit

Abstract

Although smoking rates in high-income countries have decreased since 2000, smoking remains a key modifiable risk factor for premature mortality and is the number-one risk factor for lung cancer. Continued smoking is associated with a substantially increased risk of all-cause mortality and tumour recurrence in patients with a diagnosis of lung cancer;1 previous studies have shown improved recurrence-free and overall survival in former smokers with lung cancer compared with current smokers. A 2022 meta-analysis by Caini and colleagues2 showed that quitting smoking at or around the time of lung-cancer diagnosis (ie, within 12 months) was associated with improved overall survival.

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