The study led by Victor Eng of the Department of Dermatology at Stanford University used data collected from the Women’s Health Initiative, a long-running study that originally started in the 1990s and has been extended several times. This analysis of data collected from questionnaires answered by 89,058 women looked at the odds of women undergoing breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening tests based on smoking status.
Of the participants, 52.8 percent were never smokers, 40.8 percent were former smokers, and 6.37 percent were current smokers. After following the women for an average of almost 9 years, the researchers found that current smokers had the lowest odds of having undergone breast, cervical and colorectal cancer screening. Former smokers were more likely than never smokers to undergo screening tests.
The results also showed that failure to undergo screening according to recommended guidelines resulted in diagnoses at higher cancer stages. Current smokers were nearly 3 times as likely to be diagnosed with late stage breast cancer, and more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with late stage bowel cancer than those who had never smoked.
Sources: BMJ Open vol. 10, Issue 8 and Stanford University press release
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