Hopefully a physician can weigh in with medical expertise, but as a family caregiver of someone with a blood cancer, who took chemotherapy, and who smoked as well, I can say from our experience that the message from any physician was to at least reduce smoking and preferably to cease smoking completely. Cigarette smoke contains irritants and a multitude of carcinogens that cannot be helpful to someone who already has a throat cancer. There is no chemotherapy I am familiar with that is aided by cigarette smoking. Nicotine is also one of the most addictive substances, so I can attest to a smoker still feeling the need to smoke under the most trying physical circumstances, be it cancer, hospitalization, and even near death. Chemotherapy can be very hard on the body, and smokers will feel they need to smoke to get through it, as well as the overally cancer battle. I guess they can view it as a stress reducer.