Kidney cancer is both more common and aggressive in smokers compared with nonsmokers, a new study finds. Reuters reports that more than one in four smokers who underwent surgery for kidney cancer had advanced disease, compared with one in five nonsmokers.

The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, found that former smokers who had quit were less likely than current smokers to have advanced cancer, which spread beyond the kidney. The researchers found that the more cigarettes a person smoked and the longer they smoked, the greater their chance of developing late-stage kidney cancer. For former smokers, the chance of developing advanced kidney disease fell by 9 percent for every 10 years they had been smoke free.