When you quit smoking, you are more likely to live longer after your treatment, cancer can respond better to treatment, wounds heal better, and nicotine in your body is cleared. This is important because nicotine can actually speed up the growth of cancer.
Quitting smoking can also mean improved lung health, appetite, sleep, and energy level.
If you have cancer, quitting smoking is part of your treatment – just like surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy.
Smoking when you have cancer can weaken wound healing after surgery. Smoking can also increase the risk of:
- complication and infection from surgery,
- complication and infection from surgery,
- getting another form of cancer, and
- cancer returning following treatment.
Smoking can also increase the growth of cancer and decrease the effectiveness of your chemotherapy.
