Mumbai, October 1, 2026: Quitting tobacco after a cancer diagnosis can significantly improve survival and reduce the risk of cancer progression, with new evidence showing that patients who stop smoking can have up to a 55% lower risk of death and disease progression.

IARC Evidence On Survival

The findings are from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Evidence Summary Brief No. 8, released on September 23. The Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC), Tata Memorial Centre (TMC), said the evidence reinforces the need to make tobacco cessation a routine component of cancer treatment.

IARC, in collaboration with the N.N. Blokhin National Medical Research Center of Oncology in Moscow, followed cancer patients over the long term to assess the impact of quitting after diagnosis.

In a study involving 517 lung cancer patients, those who quit smoking after diagnosis lived nearly two years longer and had about one-third lower risk of death than those who continued smoking. The benefit was seen regardless of the stage of cancer or the amount patients had previously smoked.

Benefits Seen In Kidney Cancer

A second study involving 212 kidney cancer patients found that those who quit had about half the risk of death and more than half the risk of cancer progression compared with continued smokers.

The findings have particular relevance for India, where 26.7 crore adults, or 28.6% of the adult population, used tobacco in 2016-17, according to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey-2. A large proportion of Indian tobacco users consume smokeless products such as khaini, gutka, mawa and paan.

However, the IARC studies focused on smokers. Comparable long-term evidence on whether quitting smokeless tobacco after a cancer diagnosis improves survival is not yet available.

ACTREC Addresses Evidence Gap

ACTREC said it is working to address this evidence gap through long-term research on tobacco use, cancer and cessation. The centre runs a Tobacco Cessation Clinic through its Preventive Oncology OPD and hosts the National Tobacco Quitline Services centre for Maharashtra, Goa and Gujarat.

“Helping a patient give up tobacco is as much a part of treatment as surgery, radiation or chemotherapy,” said Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, Director, ACTREC.

ACTREC has proposed that healthcare providers ask and record tobacco use at every clinical visit, routinely refer patients to cessation services, provide counselling and support for withdrawal, and strengthen research into cessation strategies for smokeless tobacco users.

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Quitting Tobacco After Cancer Diagnosis Cuts Death Risk By Upto 55 Per Cent, IARC Finds