# Postdiagnosis Smoking Cessation and Reduced Risk for Lung Cancer Progression and Mortality: A Prospective Cohort Study

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-sheikh-ann-intern-med/  
OnCo record `paper-sheikh-ann-intern-med` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Paper cited by one technology page, indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 34310171 and published in Annals of Internal Medicine; the citing page links this DOI, which is how the record was matched.

## Summary

Background: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death worldwide, and about one half of patients with lung cancer are active smokers at diagnosis.

Objective: To determine whether quitting smoking after diagnosis of lung cancer affects the risk for disease progression and mortality.

Design: Prospective study of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who were recruited between 2007 and 2016 and followed annually through 2020.

Setting: N.N. Blokhin National Medical Research Center of Oncology and City Clinical Oncological Hospital No. 1, Moscow, Russia.

Patients: 517 current smokers who were diagnosed with early-stage (IA-IIIA) NSCLC.

Measurements: Probabilities of overall survival, progression-free survival, and lung cancer - specific mortality and hazard ratios (HRs) for all-cause and cancer-specific mortality.

Results: During an average of 7 years of follow-up, 327 (63.2%) deaths, 273 (52.8%) cancer-specific deaths, and 172 (33.7%) cases of tumor progression (local recurrence or metastasis) were recorded. The adjusted median overall survival time was 21.6 months higher among patients who had quit smoking than those who continued smoking (6.6 vs. 4.8 years, respectively; P = 0.001). Higher 5-year overall survival (60.6% vs. 48.6%; P = 0.001) and progression-free survival (54.4% vs. 43.8%; P = 0.004) were observed among patients who quit than those who continued smoking. After adjustments, smoking cessation remained associated with decreased risk for all-cause mortality (HR, 0.67 [95% CI, 0.53 to 0.85]), cancer-specific mortality (HR, 0.75 [CI, 0.58 to 0.98]), and disease progression (HR, 0.70 [CI, 0.56 to 0.89]). Similar effects were observed among mild to moderate and heavy smokers and patients with earlier and later cancer stages.

Limitation: Exposure measurements were based on self-reported questionnaires.

Conclusion: Smoking cessation after diagnosis materially improved overall and progression-free survival among current smokers with early-stage lung cancer.

Primary funding source: International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 34310171 (DOI 10.7326/m21-0252). Matched by DOI alone: one technology page cites this DOI among its external links (the pages are listed under Related), and this page was written so that the citation resolves inside OnCo. No figure has been checked by an editor.

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-09-22
- Tags: europepmc-ingest
- Journal: Annals of Internal Medicine
- Year: 2021
- DOI: 10.7326/m21-0252
- Authors: Sheikh M, Mukeriya A, Shangina O, et al.
- What it means: One technology page on OnCo cites this paper by its DOI; this record gives the citation a page of its own so a reader can follow it without leaving OnCo. Read the abstract above alongside the citing page listed under Related; the record was created automatically from the Europe PMC entry and its figures have not been checked by hand.
- Caveats: Matched to the citing OnCo records by DOI alone; the summary reproduces the Europe PMC abstract and no figure has been verified against the full paper.

## Sources

- Ann Intern Med 2021: https://doi.org/10.7326/m21-0252
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34310171/
- Europe PMC: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/34310171

## Connected records

- technologies: [Smoking cessation in cancer patients](https://onco.cc/technologies/smoking-cessation-after-diagnosis/)
- journals: [Annals of Internal Medicine](https://onco.cc/journals/annals-internal-medicine/)

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