Smokers May Fare Worse Against the Deadliest Skin Cancer

Source: Health Day, March 2019

MONDAY, Feb. 25, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Melanoma patients who are recent and current smokers have lower survival rates than nonsmokers, suggesting that smoking may weaken immune response to the most deadly skin cancer, researchers say.

In a study of more than 700 melanoma patients in the United Kingdom, smokers were 40 percent less likely to survive melanoma than people who hadn’t smoked for at least 10 years before their diagnosis.

In addition, in a subset of 156 melanoma patients who had the most genetic indicators for immune cells, smokers were about 4.5 times less likely to survive the disease than nonsmokers.