Importance Withdrawal from nicotine is an important contributor to smoking relapse. Understanding how reward-based decision making is affected by abstinence and by pharmacotherapies such as nicotine replacement therapy and varenicline tartrate may aid cessation treatment. Objective To independently assess the effects of nicotine dependence and stimulation of the nicotinic acetylcholine recept...

BACKGROUND Smoking cessation has important immediate health benefits. The comparative short-term effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions is not well known. We aimed to determine the relative effectiveness of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), bupropion and varenicline at 4 weeks post-target quit date. METHODS We searched 10 electronic medical databases (inception to October 2008). W...

STUDY OBJECTIVES To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of an additional 12-week treatment with varenicline for abstainers who had successfully completed an initial 12-week treatment. DESIGN The Benefits of Smoking Cessation on Outcomes simulation model was used to simulate both direct and indirect effects of smoking cessation. All calculations were performed in 2003 Swedish prices. SETTING Swe...

Clinical and preclinical studies suggest that nicotinic acetylcholine receptors are involved in affective disorders; therefore, the potential therapeutic value of nicotinic partial agonists as treatments of these disorders is of growing interest. This study evaluated the effects of acute and chronic administration of nicotine and the alpha4beta2 nicotinic partial agonists varenicline and sazeti...

BACKGROUND The large individual variability in response to drugs for smoking cessation suggests that specific treatments can be more effective in particular subgroups of smokers. In the context of personalized medicine, the main aim of the present study was to evaluate whether the CHRNA4 and CHRNB2 polymorphisms are associated with response to smoking cessation therapies in patients from a smok...

BACKGROUND Tobacco cessation medication adherence is one of the few factors shown to improve smoking cessation rates among methadone-maintained smokers, but interventions to improve adherence to smoking cessation medications have not yet been tested among methadone treatment patients. Methadone clinic-based, directly observed therapy (DOT) programs for HIV and tuberculosis improve adherence and...

In January 2008, varenicline (Champix) was listed on the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Schedule (PBS) [1,2]. Listing means that smokers pay between $0 and $64.00 for 12 weeks’ treatment, dependent upon their income. During 2008, 368 924 PBS prescriptions (252 618 4-week initiation, 116 306 8-week continuing) were filled [1]. Initiating users were approximately 28% higher than the PBS predi...

Cigarette smoking is a readily modifiable cardiovascular and chronic kidney disease (CKD) risk factor. Smoking cessation aids include nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), bupropion, and varenicline. Several reports suggest that patients with CKD who use tobacco products be encouraged to stop; however, very little is offered to the healthcare provider as to how to successfully prescribe and monit...