Effect of smoking on the recurrence of malignant melanoma.

Smoking has been recently shown to lead to aberrant immunological function in man. Since immunological host resistance is important in the natural history of human malignant melanoma, it was the object of this study to determine the effects of smoking on the course of this disease. Investigations on 1908 patients with malignant melanoma indicated that smoking renders men significantly more susceptible to developing metastases. The proportion of men smokers free of disease five years after melanoma diagnosis was significantly lower than that of men non-smokers. An effect of smoking similar to that recorded in men was not evident in women with malignant melanoma.