A Japanese study has showed that smoking for a long time can increase the risk of death in women if breast cancer is diagnosed in them. The study showed that women triple-folded their risk of dying from breast cancer because of smoking compared to those who never smoked. The study found increased risk of death from breast cancer in women who smoked for more than two decades.

The study looked into more than 800 women with breast cancer. Risk of death from breast cancer was also linked to smoking for fewer years, but the extra risk was small.

Previous researches have also concluded that smoking increases the chances of death in women with breast cancer, but this is the first to focus on how the odds of death from breast cancer are increased due to duration of smoking, said study co-author Dr. Masaaki Kawai, a breast oncologist at Miyagi Cancer Center Hospital in Japan, in email to Reuters Health.

"There are now quite a few studies suggesting that active smokers diagnosed with breast cancer have poorer survival - not to mention accumulating evidence that smokers may have a greater risk of developing breast cancer", said Peggy Reynolds, a researcher at the Cancer Prevention Institute of California and Stanford University School of Medicine.

A woman must not only start thinking about breaking the habit of smoking only after getting diagnosed with breast cancer, as the best lifestyle change that any woman can bring in her life is by giving up smoking which gives rise to many deadly diseases, said Mia Gaudet, strategic director of breast and gynecologic research at the American Cancer Society in Atlanta.