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Allison Black

Allison Black

Researcher

Aug 13, 2026

8:54
And I might just ask Allison here, you know, is that, uh, an attitude you've seen, uh, in the past with patients who smoked, uh, feel that perhaps they're not worthy of treatment or they may be more reluctant because of that?
9:08
Yeah, absolutely, Gavin.
9:09
I always make it quite clear to patients, um, when I first meet them that no one deserves cancer regardless of what activity you've done in the past, and we don't assign that kind of blame, um, to other diseases, so we shouldn't be just assigning it to, to cancer.
9:24
But particularly, you know, I work in Tasmania, we have some higher smoking rates in certain pockets of Tasmania, and people do come in saying, "Well, you know, I deserve this cancer.
9:33
I'm not too sure if I want treatment." And certainly, there is no clear data that, um, smoking makes you less likely to, um, respond to treatments.
9:43
The standard of care around Australia really should be a good, um, pathological diagnosis, molecular profiling, and a discussion at a expert, um, multidisciplinary team meeting, and that's regardless of, of whether you've smoked in the past or not.
9:57
So I think we just, as clinicians, we need to make that really clear right from the start of meeting people that, um, there is no blame assigned to whether you've smoked in the past or not, and that we just need to make a plan together moving forward that's gonna be in the best interests and is evidence-based for our patients.
10:21
And there's no evidence that there's extra side effects or less response with immunotherapy, for example, is there, Allison?

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