Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT): Difference between revisions

==2006: Nicotine replacement therapy for long‐term smoking cessation: a meta‐analysis==

This review focused on the long‐term impact of the current “one‐shot” therapeutic approach to treatment with NRT and found significant but modest effects. Although such treatment is still likely to be highly cost‐effective in terms of life‐years gained, the substantial amount of relapse observed even after a year of abstinence, and the fact that more than 90% of those treated do not succeed, questions whether this therapeutic approach is the most appropriate. Our results support the notion that nicotine addiction, like others, should be viewed as a chronic recurring disease of the brain, and that its treatment should probably be closer to the long‐term treatment of other chronic diseases, such as hypertension, than that used for acute diseases like infections. For many smokers at least, a chronic, prolonged treatment is probably necessary and should include the encouragement to make repeated quit attempts accompanied with multiple treatment episodes over many years. To date, only one study has thoroughly investigated the effect of prolonged treatment on health outcomes. The results in terms of reducing smoking and morbidity have been encouraging