Conor E. Steuer, MD, on Smoking Cessation Habits in Patients with Early-Stage NSCLC Enrolling on Clinical Trials

Conor E. Steuer, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine and lead study author, sat down with CancerNetwork® to discuss a recently published prospective study which found a high rate of smoking reduction and cessation in patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) following enrollment on a clinical trial.

“What we showed is that most patients quit smoking when they go their diagnosis of lung cancer; and of the one’s that quit, the vast majority continued to abstain from tobacco use,” Steuersaid.

In regard to disease-free survival, Steuer and his colleagues found that there was no association between smokers and nonsmokers, but they did find that there were fewer grade 3 or greater toxicities and more favorable overall survival in patients who were never smokers.

According to Steuer, the use of tobacco and its effect on outcomes in early-stage disease has never been explored in a prospect clinical trial before this research.

This segment comes from the CancerNetwork® portion of the MJH Life Sciences™ Medical World News®, airing daily on all MJH Life Sciences™ channels.

Reference:

Steuer CE, Jegede OA, Dahlberg SE, et al; ECOG-ACRIN 1505 Investigators. Smoking behavior in patients with early-stage NSCLC: a report from ECOG-ACRIN 1505 Trial. J Thorac Oncol. February 1, 2021. doi: 10.1016/j.jtho.2020.12.017