Preventing Lung Cancer by Treating Tobacco Dependence

Clinics in Chest Medicine
Volume 32, Issue 4, December 2011, Pages 645-657

Richard D. Hurt, Jon O. Ebbert, J. Taylor Hays, David D. McFadden

SUMMARY The US Public Health Service Guideline 2008 Update emphasizes tobacco use as a chronic medical disorder, highlights both behavioral counseling and the use of the 7 approved medications, and points out the usefulness, efficacy, and reach of telephone quitlines. Although providing evidence-based treatment of tobacco-dependent patients is a challenge for busy physicians, a team approach including trained and certified TTS [Tobacco Treatment Specialists] provides an efficient treatment model. TTS represent a new and growing part of the health care team and could expand the collective tobacco treatment expertise in the medical setting. Effective tobacco dependence treatment frequently requires tailoring, and often intensifying, of the interventions, both counseling and pharmacotherapy, to meet the needs of the individual patient. Although the report of LDCT [low-dose computed tomography] screening reducing lung cancer mortality is an important advance, stopping smoking not only reduces the risk of lung cancer but a myriad of other cancers, cardiovascular disease, stroke, peripheral vascular disease, and many others. Treating tobacco dependence is one of the most cost-effective therapies in medicine and it deserves adequate reimbursement for it to be more widely available.

View article at the link below
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272523111000797

Also:
Lung Cancer: Epidemiology, Etiology, and Prevention
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272523111000943

Screening for Lung Cancer
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272523111000906