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Smoking is an addiction and smokers find it difficult to quit. But, to the smokers’ delight, the researchers have confirmed that, nicotine patch and nicotine lozenge can be the most effective medications for the smoking cessation.
Researcher Megan E. Piper of the University of Wisconsin, says, "Many smokers have successfully quit using a variety of smoking cessation pharmacotherapies, yet there is little direct evidence on the relative efficacies of these different pharmacotherapies."
"Without such evidence clinicians and smokers lack a strong empirical basis for recommending or selecting among them," he added.
Piper and his team conducted an extensive clinical trial of smoking cessation therapies on 1, 504 adults. They found that everybody got a motivation to quit the habit.
The participants were divided into six treatment groups involving different treatment methods like nicotine lozenge group, nicotine patch group, bupropion group, patch plus nicotine lozenge. The treatment continued for eight to twelve weeks. Additionally, all the participants were also given counselling sessions.
At the end, the researchers saw that patch plus nicotine lozenge group responded more in quitting.
In addition, this combination along with the patch alone were most effective at helping people achieve at least one day of abstinence from smoking, an important stepping stone to successful quitting.
According to the authors, the patch can be effective if combined with other therapies like gum, inhaler or nasal spray.
The authors say, "The present results suggest that the nicotine lozenge can also be effective as an adjuvant to the nicotine patch."
They also write, "The key seems to be that an ad libitum, or as needed, agent must be paired with the patch; simply using higher patch doses do not seem to augment outcomes to the same degree."
These findings have been published in the current issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.
