Doctors do not know if they should encourage smokers to switch to e-cigarettes



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OAccording to one survey, one in three doctors would not recommend e-cigarettes to smokers. A quarter of them do not know if they are safer than smoking.

The survey of more than 500 oncologists, general practitioners and nurses revealed that more than half of the respondents said they did not know enough about vaping to make recommendations to their patients.

It comes despite advice from Public Health England (PHE) that suggests devices are at least 95% less harmful than cigarettes.

The researchers asked the doctors if they would recommend the electronic cigarette to cancer patients who had continued smoking after the diagnosis.

Smoking increases the risk of treatment complications, recurrence of the disease and tumor development, increasing the risk of death.

The study found that 29% of health professionals said they would not recommend past patients to the electronic cigarette, while 25% did not know if they were less dangerous than smoking.

The researchers said health workers needed more training to help them better counsel patients.

The new survey, presented at the National Cancer Research Institute conference, to be held in Glasgow in 2018, revealed that most interviewees did not know if their hospital had any advice on it, or thought so.

Lead researcher Dr. Jo Brett of Oxford Brookes University said, "Smoking is a well-established risk factor for many common cancers and is the leading cause of preventable cancer. in the world.

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