Stroke survivors are more likely to continue smoking than cancer survivors, increasing their risk of a recurrent stroke, according to a new study.
The research was published today in Stroke, a journal of the American Stroke Association.
Neal Parikh, M.D., M.S., lead author of the study and a neurologist at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, said:
“The motivation for this study was the National Cancer Institute (NCI)’s Moonshot initiative that includes smoking cessation among people with cancer. We were curious to understand smoking among people with stroke and cardiovascular disease.
“In part to assess whether a similar program is necessary for stroke survivors, our team compared smoking cessation rates between stroke survivors and cancer survivors.”
The researchers analysed annual data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System gathered between 2013 and 2019.
A total of 74,000 respondents reported having a stroke and a history of smoking and 155,693 respondents identified as cancer survivors with a history of smoking.
The researchers found:
- Stroke survivors were found to be 28 per cent less likely to have quit smoking compared to people with cancer.
- 61 per cent of stroke survivors reported that they had quit smoking.
- Stroke survivors under the age of 60 were far less likely to have quit smoking (43 per cent) compared to stroke survivors ages 60 and older (75 per cent).
Parikh said: “If you told a stroke neurologist that 40 per cent of their patients don’t have their blood pressure controlled or weren’t taking their aspirin or their cholesterol-lowering medication, I think they would be very disappointed.
“These results indicate that we should be disappointed—more of our stroke patients need to quit smoking. We can and should be doing a lot better in helping patients with smoking cessation after stroke.”
The researchers also found that stroke survivors who live in the eight ‘Stroke Belt’ states were six per cent less likely to have quit smoking than stroke survivors living elsewhere in the US.
Meanwhile, research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that a fatal stroke or heart attack is often the first sign of cardiovascular disease in US smokers.
