Post‑cancer diagnosis smoking cessation linked to lower mortality in Korean study

A Korean study investigated whether continuing to smoke after a cancer diagnosis affects health outcomes. Researchers tracked more than 46,000 cancer patients and found that those who quit smoking after diagnosis had a lower risk of death compared to those who kept smoking. The difference was especially pronounced for cardiovascular diseases such as myocardial infarction and stroke. This suggests that even long‑term smokers can improve their health by quitting after a cancer diagnosis. The analysis used data from the National Health Insurance Service and included 4,6834 patients who were smoking at the time of cancer diagnosis between 2015 and 2022, as identified by a research team at Samsung Medical Center.