People, particularly women, are much more likely to develop a serious type of urothelial cancer if they smoke. They are also more likely to die from the disease, a new study suggests.

Urothelial cancer refers to cancer of the bladder, ureters or renal pelvis.

US scientists decided to investigate the effects of smoking on these types of cancer and whether gender played any role in their development.

They monitored the progress of over 500 men and 300 women who had undergone surgery to treat their urothelial cancer.

The study found that smoking significantly increased the risk of a person developing a serious form of this disease and dying from it. This was more evident in women.

Furthermore, the cancer was more likely to recur in women who smoked compared to men who smoked.

In fact, among long-term heavy smokers, women were 70% more likely than men to experience a cancer recurrence. They were also twice as likely as men to die from this type of cancer.

However, among both men and women, those who quit smoking saw a significant reduction in their risk of death. In fact, after 10 years, the risk of death was the same as a non-smoker.

Among women only, the risk of cancer recurrence and death rose in line with how much and how often they smoked. In other words, the more they smoked, the greater the risk.

"The biological and clinical effect of smoking seems to be different in females than in males. More effort needs to be spent on the science of how normal human biology differs between men and women and how the diagnosis and treatment of urothelial cancer differs as a function of gender," the scientists said.

They added that smoking prevention and cessation programmes could have a ‘major healthcare impact in urothelial cancer'.

Details of these findings are published in the journal, BJU International.