So Thomas Jefferson University oncologist Barbara Campling was intrigued that many of her lung cancer patients had suddenly, effortlessly stopped smoking within a few years of their diagnosis. A multi-pack-a-day puffer told her he woke up one day and simply forgot to light up.
Now, a study she led posits a provocative explanation: Kicking the habit without misery may itself be an early symptom of lung cancer.
"We believe that long-term heavy smokers who quit, especially without difficulty, are at risk for having or developing lung cancer," she and her coauthors wrote in this month's issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology. "We speculate that some lung cancers may produce a factor that blocks or emulates the effects of nicotine."
Campling conducted the study at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center. Between 2004 and 2006, 115 lung cancer patients were interviewed in detail about their smoking history and diagnoses.
All of them had smoked at least a pack a day for an average of 30 years, and had struggled to quit numerous times.
But 55 of them - almost half - stopped smoking a median of 2.7 years before being diagnosed, and 17 of those quitters did it abruptly, without difficulty.
Even the 60 lung cancer patients who kept smoking reduced their tobacco use by at least 50 percent in the year before diagnosis, "suggesting a spontaneous decrease in their desire for nicotine."
Ex-smokers who had prostate cancer or heart attacks were also interviewed, but as expected, they didn't fit the pattern of quitting easily not long before diagnosis.
Campling hopes the study will spur research to decipher the biological basis for misery-free withdrawal, which could lead to new smoking cessation strategies.
The study also suggests that "if a heavy smoker suddenly feels no need to smoke, that should be investigated" with diagnostic tests.
"The absolutely wrong interpretation," she said, is " 'if you're a smoker, keep smoking so you don't get cancer.' "
- Marie McCullough
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