Smoking STOPS your body from fighting cancer and makes you 40% less likely to survive 10 years after diagnosis
- People with history of smoking have less effective immune system, study shows
- Those with genetic signs of a high immune system also affected if they smoked
- Researchers said the findings stress the importance of quitting after diagnosis
Smoking cigarettes stops the body from fighting deadly skin cancer, according to research.
Smokers and former smokers are 40 per cent less likely to survive the disease ten years after diagnosis than those who have never smoked.
A connection between smoking and the bodies response to melanoma, most commonly caused by exposure to the sun, has not been previously found.
The immune response of smokers appears to work, but is less effective, researchers at the University of Leeds said.
They advise that people drop the habit if they are fighting the skin cancer, which has shown to be on the rise in the UK in recent years.
Smokers and former smokers are 40 per cent less likely to survive the disease ten years after diagnosis than those who have never smoked
Professor Julia Newton-Bishop, lead author of the Cancer Research UK-funded study, said: ‘The immune system is like an orchestra, with multiple pieces.
‘This research suggests that smoking might disrupt how it works together in tune, allowing the musicians to continue playing but possibly in a more disorganised way.’
The study used data from more than 700 patients with melanoma, which takes the lives of 2,000 in the UK every year, and 9,000 in the US.
The research found that people who have smoked have a 40 per cent lower survival rate, but the researchers did not specifiy how many cigarettes would impact a person’s health.
In a small group of 156 patients who had indicators of genetically better immune systems, smokers were around four and a half times less likely to survive than non-smokers.
Given that reduced survival was found to be greatest for smokers in the group with most indicators of immune cells, the researchers think that smoking could directly affect how smokers’ bodies deal with the melanoma cancer cells.
However, due to the study design, they cannot prove that smoking was the cause in the drop in survival.
Professor Newton-Bishop said: ‘The result is that smokers could still mount an immune response to try and destroy the melanoma, but it appears to have been less effective than in never-smokers, and smokers were less likely to survive their cancer.
‘Based on these findings, stopping smoking should be strongly recommended for people diagnosed with melanoma.’
Dr Julia Sharp, head of health information at Cancer Research UK, said: ‘Overall, these results show that smoking could limit the chances of melanoma patients’ survival so it’s especially important that they are given all the support possible to give up smoking for good.’