RESE ARCH TULSA
A study by Lurdes Queimado, M.D., Ph.D., suggests that e-cigarette use may decrease the benefit of chemotherapy.
OU College of Medicine Researcher Publishes Major Study on E-cigarette Use and Chemotherapy Resistance An OU College of Medicine researcher has published a groundbreaking new study suggesting that when people use electronic cigarettes while undergoing chemotherapy for cancer, they will likely receive much less benefit from the treatment.
quit smoking instead of immediately switching to e-cigarettes,” said Queimado, Director of Basic and Translational Research for the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery in the OU College of Medicine, and a TSET Research Scholar at Stephenson Cancer Center.
Lurdes Queimado, M.D., Ph.D., published the study in Scientific Reports, a Nature Research publication and one of the world’s leading journals. While much is known about the harmful effects of tobacco smoking, including during cancer treatment, researchers have less knowledge about e-cigarettes, also called vapes. Queimado’s study is the first in the world to show that e-cigarettes, like regular cigarettes, can prevent chemotherapy from working as well as it should. The study was conducted in vitro, or in laboratory experiments, but the study’s measures are predictive of a patient’s response to cancer treatment. Her next step is to conduct a similar study in patients at OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center who are being treated for head and neck cancers and cervical cancer.
Queimado’s experiments focused on head and neck cancer cells that were treated with a common platinum-based chemotherapy called cisplatin. In the models of e-cigarette use, far fewer cancer cells died after the standard dose of cisplatin. Queimado’s hypothesis was that the nicotine in e-cigarettes caused the resistance to chemotherapy, just as it does when people smoke tobacco. That was true, but she also found that other chemicals in e-cigarettes contributed to therapy resistance as well.
“When patients are diagnosed with cancer and are still smoking tobacco, they often ask, ‘What if I switch to e-cigarettes during chemotherapy?’ Until now, we have not known whether that would be a good option. What this study tells us is that, while e-cigarette vapors have fewer toxins than smoke, at least during cancer treatment patients should use all other smoking cessation tools to help them
“We don’t know yet what those compounds are, but we know that e-cigarettes contain chemicals that are not present in tobacco, and their effects when inhaled are poorly characterized,” she said. For oncologists, the implications of the study are significant. Studies show that over 60% of lung and head and neck cancer patients continue to smoke tobacco during their treatment, which has a host of negative implications. Now it appears that switching to e-cigarettes isn’t the best alternative during cancer treatment; rather, patients should first take advantage of all other smoking cessation aids.
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