Influence of Smoking and Alcohol Drinking Behaviors on Treatment Outcomes of Patients With Squamous Cell Carcinomas of the Head and Neck

Tobacco Smoking During Radiation Therapy for Head-and-Neck Cancer Is Associated With Unfavorable Outcome

“…These findings are consistent with those recently reported by Fortin et al (9), who found 5-year local control rates of 80% and 67% for former and active smokers, respectively, treated by radiation therapy for head-and-neck cancer. Similarly, Kumar et al (10) published a prospective trial of 50 patients with locally advanced oropharyngeal cancer treated at the University of Michigan with induction chemotherapy followed by chemoradiotherapy and showed that current smokers, as opposed to former or never smokers, had significantly worse overall survival and disease-specific survival.…”

Smoking is a poor prognostic factor for male nasopharyngeal carcinoma treated with radiotherapy

“…There was no advantage for patients who had accumulated several pack-years compared to recent smokers with the same amount of pack-years. Previous reports had indicated smoking was a poor prognostic factor for head and neck cancer [11,12]. K. Kian Ang et al [17,19] had reported that tobacco smoking was a risk factor for prognosis of oropharyngeal cancer and the risk of death increased by 1% per pack-year, then further established risk-of-death categories model based on HPV status, pack-years of tobacco smoking, tumor stage, and nodal stage.…”

“…In the past decade, great effort had been made in exploring the relationship between tobacco and prognosis of head and neck cancer (HNC) [10][11][12]. A prospective study, involving 115 advanced HNC patients receiving radiotherapy, reported that smoking during radiation would lead to a lower complete response and overall survival rate [13].…”

Does Quitting Smoking Make a Difference Among Newly Diagnosed Head and Neck Cancer Patients?

“…15,16,24 However, other studies fail to show a significant difference in mortality based on smoking status after controlling for covariates. [25][26][27][28] In the head and neck cancer literature, smoking significantly increases overall mortality and cancer-specific mortality, 10,21,23,[29][30][31][32][33][34] and pack-years of smoking has a dose-response positive relationship with mortality, 23,30,35 yet some studies reported nonsignificant differences in overall mortality [36][37][38][39] and cancer-specific mortality 37,40 between smokers and nonsmokers. However, previous studies are limited by a one-time smoking assessment at or after diagnosis (mostly at diagnosis), their retrospective nature, inability to control for covariates, and short follow-up periods.…”