FIGURE 1 Postoperative smoking cessation of the bladder cancer patients according to times (months)
The rate of cessation of smoking at female patients was 40% whereas it was 30.4% at male patients (p=0.06). The mean age of the patients who stopped and did not stop smoking after the diagnosis were 60.5±8.7 and 60.4±10.4 years, respectively (p=0.966). The pre-diagnosis smoking frequency of patients who quit smoking was 22.1±11.4 cigarette/day, whereas it was 21.6±10.0 cigarette/day at patients who did not stop smoking (p=0.811). It was an elating finding that the frequency of still smokers decreased to 11.2±8.4 cigarette/day after the surgery (p<0.001). This data documented even they did not totally quit cigarettes, smoking frequency significantly decreased after the surgery. When we asked the reason of cessation of smoking, 32(94.1%) patients stated that the reason was the diagnosis of BC. Other 2(5.9%) patients reported that lower respiratory system symptoms were the reason.
There were 28 patients with MIBC at the time of diagnosis. Of these patients, 21(75.0%) had local disease and underwent radical cystectomy. Among the patients who had MIBC, 11(39.3%) were smokers at the time of diagnosis. Surprisingly, the rate of cessation of smoking at these patients was 27.3% (3 of 11 patients).
The rate of recurrence and progression of NMIBC were 27.0% and 6.8%, respectively. The rates of recurrence and progression according to demographic and pathologic findings for NMIBC patients are shown at Table 2. The smoking status was not related with the recurrence and progression (p>0.05). The Cox regression model did not show any relationship between the smoking status and recurrence / progression (Table 3).
TABLE 2 The rates of recurrence and progression according to demographic, pathologic findings and smoking status for non-muscle invasive bladder cancer patients