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Excerpts from: Quitting smoking key to fighting lung cancer

By DAVID WAHLBERG Atlanta Journal-Constitution [05/19/02]

ORLANDO -- Smokers who quit live longer than those who don't, even after a lung cancer diagnosis, a new study has found.

The study, presented Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, found that twice as many lung cancer patients were alive two and five years after diagnosis if they quit smoking, and many more nonsmokers also were disease-free.

The finding, by Greg Videtic of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, is significant because doctors often have a hard time convincing patients to give up cigarettes after learning they have lung cancer.

Patients feel the damage is already done, or they view smoking as a stress reliever to get them through the difficult news of learning they have cancer.

"Many people have a defeatist attitude," said Dr. Carl Tahn, an oncologist with Emory University's Winship Cancer Institute. "They think, 'I already have cancer, why shouldn't I keep smoking?' . . . Studies like this give them a reason to quit. It's never too late to quit."

Tahn said he encourages all his lung cancer patients to quit smoking but only about one-third do.

Dr. Paul Scheinberg, chief of pulmonary medicine at St. Joseph's Health System in Atlanta, said he has persuaded nearly 90 percent of his lung cancer patients to abandon cigarettes.

He tells them to think of smokes as cancer food.

"If patients want to keep feeding the cancer while trying to oppose it, the feeding will probably win," Scheinberg said. "They have to get in the mind-set that the cigarette is not their best friend, as they've been accustomed to. It's a betraying friend."

Donna Belmont-Lehr, 56, of Roswell was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2000. She had smoked for nearly 40 years and had quit three times only to start again. But Bemont-Lehr hasn't had a cigarette since two weeks after learning she had cancer. She shows no signs of recurrent cancer, and she credits nicotine patches, chewing gum, big bags of suckers and a new outlook on life for helping her quit.

"It was the reality of the fact that I wasn't infallible," she said. "I don't intend to go back to smoking, but I don't say I'll never have another cigarette. I just take it day by day."

Experts say quitting smoking allows lung tissues to get healthier and chemotherapy drugs to work more effectively while enabling patients to better withstand the side effects of chemotherapy.