Smoking, smoking cessation, and lung cancer in the UK since 1950: combination of national statistics with two case-control studies
Smoking reduction with oral nicotine inhalers: double-blind, randomised clinical trial of efficacy and safety
Effectiveness of interventions to help people stop smoking: findings from the Cochrane Library
Three articles in this week's BMJ demonstrate the importance of stopping smoking or discuss the effective methods currently available to help people kick the habit.
UK TOBACCO DEATHS ALREADY HALVED BY SMOKING CESSATION
The health benefits of stopping smoking are highlighted in a paper by Peto and colleagues. They show that people who stop smoking - even at 50 or 60 years of age - avoid most of their risk of developing lung cancer, and quitting before middle age avoids more than 90% of the risk caused by tobacco.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE EMBARGO FOR THIS PAPER ONLY WILL BE LIFTED AT 10.30 HOURS UK TIME (05.30 HRS ET) WEDNESDAY 2 AUGUST 2000 to coincide with a press conference at BMA House, Tavistock Square, London WC1, chaired by Dr Richard Smith, Editor, British Medical Journal.
Speaking at the press conference will be Professor Sir Richard Peto, Professor of Medical Statistics and Professor Sir Richard Doll, Emeritus Professor of Medicine - author of the 1950 landmark study linking smoking with increased risk of lung cancer and co-author of this new study, fifty years on.
Many people who smoke make multiple attempts to quit, and will benefit from the availability of a range of aids to help them, according to a paper by Lancaster and colleagues. They find that advice from health professionals, individual and group counselling, nicotine replacement therapy and certain antidepressants are among the most effective interventions currently available to help people stop smoking. For smokers who are either unable or unwilling to stop abruptly, Bolliger and colleagues show that using a nicotine inhaler can reduce cigarette consumption by over 50% over a two-year period. Although the overall success rates were relatively small, say the authors, this is a feasible first step towards improved health, and may ultimately lead to these smokers quitting altogether.
These findings emphasise the simple, yet powerful messages that clinicians can and should communicate to all patients, suggest Thun and Glynn in an accompanying editorial. "Firstly, don't smoke. Secondly, if you do smoke, there are major health benefits to stopping as soon as possible, no matter what your age or how long you have been smoking. Thirdly, there are a wide array of effective cessation treatments now available."
Contacts:
Sir Richard Peto or Sir Richard Doll, Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit, Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, UK
Tim Lancaster / Lindsay Stead Department of Primary Health Care, University of Oxford, Institute of Health Sciences, Oxford, UK Email: lindsay.stead@dphpc.ox.ac.uk
Chris Bolliger, Department of Internal Medicine, University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland (currently: University of Stellenbosch, Cape Town, South Africa) Email: ctb@gerga.sun.ac.za