Nicotine Gum Destroys Chemotherapy Treatment Effectiveness

April 10th, 2006

A recent study shows why lung cancer patients who continue to smoke, use a nicotine patch or chew nicotine gum generally do not respond well to their cancer therapies. The H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, Florida, tested three standard lung cancer drugs on cell lines taken from lung cancer tumors.

When a small amount of nicotine was added to the tumor cells, the cancer controlling genes stopped a process of apoptosis or “cell suicide.” Nicotine seemed to provide a protective environment for the cancer cells, and they continued to proliferate. The three lung cancer drugs tested in the lung tumor cultures were gemcitabine, cisplatin, and taxol.

These recent findings were in agreement with earlier clinical studies indicating that continuing smokers had worse survival rates than those who quit before treatment. Results of the recent cancer research were published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Source: ABC Online

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