We would believe that once someone is diagnosed with lung cancer and undergoes a surgery, which involves removal of part or the whole of lung would motivate that person to quit smoking. But that may not be correct. A new study has observed that close to half of 154 smokers who had surgery to remove early stage lung cancer picked up a cigarette again within 12 months of their potentially curative operation, and more than one-third were smoking at the one year mark. Sixty percent of patients who started smoking again did so within two months of surgery.

The study, led by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine and reported in the recent issue of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, is the first to look at smoking relapse among people who were "forced" to quit due to impending surgery.

"These patients are all addicted, so you cannot assume they will easily change their behavior simply because they have dodged this particular bullet," said the study's lead author, Mark S. Walker, Ph.D., a clinical psychology expert and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Washington University. "Their choices are driven by insidious cravings for nicotine."

The researchers observed that those smokers who were the last to give up their cigarettes - some on the same day as their operation - and who saw smoking as a pleasurable activity they would have difficulty giving up, were also the first to resume the habit. And they concluded that patients who were able to hold out the longest before they took up a cigarette after surgery were the ones who were most likely not to be smoking in a year's time.


Posted by: Geethu    Source

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