Smoking causes more pain in cancer sufferers

William Atkins
Thursday, 30 December 2010 00:03

Science - Health

According to an American study of smoking and cancer, researchers found that continuing to smoke after being diagnosed with cancer results in more pain when compared to people who have cancer but do not smoke.

The U.S. researchers found that patients with cancer had various amounts of pain depending on whether they currently smoked tobacco-related products (such as cigarettes), formerly smoked, or never smoked.

They found that current smokers experienced more severe pain than people who had never smoked.

They also reported that more pain was reported from current smokers when compared to former smokers.

In fact, the researchers found that smokers that had quit will reduce their pain over time if diagnosed with cancer. In other words, the more time that has passed since smoking, the less pain they reported if diagnosed with cancer.

The authors of the study are Joseph W. Ditre, Texas A&M University, Brian D. Gonzalez, University of South Florida, Vani N. Simmons, Leigh Anne Faul, Thomas H. Brandon, and Paul B. Jacobsen.

They published their results in the January 2011 issue of the journal Pain (Ditre, J. Bastian, L. Pain, January 2011; vol 152: pp 60-65, 10-11). The Pain article is entitled 'Associations between pain and current smoking status among cancer patients' (DOI: 10.1016/j.pain.2010.09.001).

Dr. Lori Bastian (Durham VA Medical Center and Duke University) authored commentary on the study within the same issue of the journal. It is entitled "Pain and smoking among cancer patients: The relationship is complex but the clinical implication is clear" (DOI: 10.1016/j.pain.2010.10.023).

Quotes are provided from the Elsevier.com article 'Smoking May Worsen Pain for Cancer Patients.'

Page two continues with commentary from Dr. Ditre and Dr. Bastian.