Patients who have smoked for decades are usually not surprised when they are diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. However, they may be unwilling to stop smoking when asked to do so by their treatment team. Will it save their life if they stop now? No. Will it help extend their life by a few months potentially? Maybe. We know that smoking is an addiction, and we also know that people smoke more when under stress, making it difficult to ask a patient to stop smoking at this point in their life.
