Smoking among parents of pediatric cancer patients and children’s exposure to environmental tobacco smoke

For 303 children newly diagnosed with cancer, we investigated the prevalence of parental smoking and examined patients’ respiratory or pulmonary symptoms according to household smoking status. Results indicated that approximately 45 percent of patients came from households with at least one current parent smoker and 20 percent of current non-smoking parents reported past tobacco use. There was a trend for more patients from smoking households to experience respiratory problems than patients from non-smoking households ( p = .068). In conclusion, many patients are at risk for parental smoke exposure and associated health problems if they are continually exposed during therapy. Clinician-delivered interventions to reduce environmental smoke exposure are clearly warranted.