Smoking cessation during radiotherapy

As a student therapeutic radiographer, I was surprised by the number of lung cancer patients who continued to smoke post-diagnosis. Initially, I naively assumed a lung cancer diagnosis would motivate most patients to quit smoking. I failed to see smoking addiction as a chronic illness. When I saw the number of lung cancer patients who continued smoking, I developed an interest in the smoking cessation support available to this cohort. Through my research for this essay, I discovered that lung cancer patients need a great deal of holistic support to overcome their smoking addiction successfully long term.

Lung cancer is the most frequent cause of all cancer deaths in the UK¹. However, 79% of all lung cancer cases are considered preventable¹. Smoking is single-handedly the largest cause of lung cancer in the UK, accounting for 72% of cases¹. Despite...