BackgroundIt has been estimated that there are approximately 12 million cancer survivors in the United States. Continued smoking after a cancer diagnosis is linked to adverse effects among cancer survivors on overall survival, treatment effectiveness, and quality of life. Little is known about who is more likely to quit smoking after his/her cancer diagnosis. The objective of this study is to evaluate factors associated with smoking cessation in cancer survivors, which to date has not been well studied.MethodThe National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2008 surveys were used in this study. A total of 2,374 cancer survivors aged 20 and over with valid smoking status in the NHANES 99–08 survey were included in this study. Among them, 566 cancer survivors who regularly smoked at the time of their cancer diagnosis were included in the analyses.ResultsAround 50.6% of cancer survivors smoked regularly prior to their cancer diagnosis and only 36.1% of them quit smoking after their cancer diagnosis. Racial disparity was observed in smoking cessation among cancer survivors. Hispanics (OR = 0.23, 95% CI = 0.10-0.57) were less likely to quit smoking than Whites after their cancer diagnosis.ConclusionTwo-thirds of cancer survivors continued smoking after cancer diagnosis. Our study observed that the high risk group of continued smokers among cancer survivors is made up of those who are female, younger, Hispanic, with longer smoking history, underweight or with normal weight and without smoking-related cancer. These findings suggest that smoking cessation for cancer survivors should target on the high risk subgroups.

Careful planning, recruitment of large numbers of clinical centers and adequate resources accomplished by the combined efforts of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG), SELECT Recruitment and Adherence Committee (RAC), SELECT Minority and Medically Underserved Subcommittee (MMUS), and the local SELECT sites resulted in attainment of the estimated sample size ahead of schedule and recruitment of the largest percentage of black participants ever randomized to a cancer prevention trial.

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Several variations in the nicotinic receptor genes have been identified to be associated with both lung cancer risk and smoking in the genome-wide association (GWA) studies. However, the relationships among these three factors (genetic variants, nicotine dependence, and lung cancer) remain unclear. In an attempt to elucidate these relationships, we applied mediation analysis to quantify the impact of nicotine dependence on the association between the nicotinic receptor genetic variants and lung adenocarcinoma risk. We evaluated 23 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the five nicotinic receptor related genes (CHRNB3, CHRNA6, and CHRNA5/A3/B4) previously reported to be associated with lung cancer risk and smoking behavior and 14 SNPs in the four ‘control’ genes (TERT, CLPTM1L, CYP1A1, and TP53), which were not reported in the smoking GWA studies. A total of 661 lung adenocarcinoma cases and 1,347 controls with a smoking history, obtained from the Environment and Genetics in Lung Cancer Etiology case-control study, were included in the study. Results show that nicotine dependence is a mediator of the association between lung adenocarcinoma and gene variations in the regions of CHRNA5/A3/B4 and accounts for approximately 15% of this relationship. The top two CHRNA3 SNPs associated with the risk for lung adenocarcinoma were rs1051730 and rs12914385 (p-value = 1.9×10−10 and 1.1×10−10, respectively). Also, these two SNPs had significant indirect effects on lung adenocarcinoma risk through nicotine dependence (p = 0.003 and 0.007). Gene variations rs2736100 and rs2853676 in TERT and rs401681 and rs31489 in CLPTM1L had significant direct associations on lung adenocarcinoma without indirect effects through nicotine dependence. Our findings suggest that nicotine dependence plays an important role between genetic variants in the CHRNA5/A3/B4 region, especially CHRNA3, and lung adenocarcinoma. This may provide valuable information for understanding the pathogenesis of lung adenocarcinoma and for conducting personalized smoking cessation interventions.

Disease management has become an important tool for improving population patient outcomes. The Louisiana State University Health Care Services Division (HCSD) has used this tool to provide care to a largely uninsured population for approximately 10 years. Eight programs currently exist within the HCSD focusing on diabetes, asthma, congestive heart failure, HIV, cancer screening, smoking cessation, chronic kidney disease, and diet, exercise, and weight control. These programs operate at hospital and clinic sites located in 8 population centers throughout southern Louisiana. The programs are structured to be managed at the system level with a clinical expert for each area guiding the scope of the program and defining new goals. Care largely adheres to evidence-based guidelines set forth by professional organizations. To monitor quality of care, indicators are defined within each area and benchmarked to achieve the most effective measures in our population. For example, hemoglobin A1c levels have shown improvements with nearly 54% of the population <7.0%. To support these management efforts, HCSD utilizes an electronic data repository that allows physicians to track patient labs and other tests as well as reminders. To ensure appropriate treatment, patients are able to enroll in the Medication Assistance program. This largely improves adherence to medications for those patients unable to afford them otherwise.