Smokers Face Higher Risk of Breast Cancer Recurrence

Survivors of early stage breast cancer who smoke after breast-conserving surgery—a lumpectomy—face a greater risk of developing a new second cancer than women who did not smoke (25 percent versus 9 percent). Smokers were also more likely to devlop cancer in the other breast than non-smokers (13 percent versus 8 percent). Results were correlated 15 years following treatment and were independent of other factors such as age, family history, hormone receptor status, and HER2/neu status.

Researchers from The Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ) studied 796 self-reported smokers who received breast conserving therapy between 1975 and 2007 at Yale University School of Medicine. According to a news release from The CINJ:

Women who survive early-stage breast cancer and smoke have an increased chance of developing a new second cancer in their other breast or elsewhere. Investigators from The Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ) are releasing these findings at an oral presentation during the 92nd Annual Meeting of the American Radium Society taking place this week in Cancun, Mexico. CINJ is a Center of Excellence of UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

It has been shown that women who survive breast cancer have two- to six-times increased risk of developing cancer in their other breast, compared with women who have never had breast cancer. In hopes of making second cancers less likely, researchers have studied risk factors that can be controlled, such as smoking, obesity and alcohol consumption. Conflicting results on this subject recently appeared in studies published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and the American Journal of Epidemiology. MORE