Network meta-analysis demonstrates the safety of pharmacotherapy for smoking cessation in cardiovascular patients

Commentary on: Mills EJ, Thorlund K, Eapen S, et al.. Cardiovascular events associated with smoking cessation pharmacotherapies: a network meta-analysis. Circulation 2014;129:28–41. Context The importance of smoking cessation in the prevention and management of cardiovascular disease cannot be overestimated. Exposure to tobacco products, beginning in utero, causes substantial damage to vascular health, imposing dramatic public and personal health burdens over a lifetime. Smokers lose, on average, 10 years of life expectancy.1 Smoking cessation is the most powerful preventive intervention available—particularly to those already suffering from cardiovascular disease.2 Systematic approaches to the identification and treatment of smokers with front-line pharmacotherapies, particularly in cardiovascular settings, have demonstrated significant benefit in inducing and maintaining cessation.3 Our ability to increase cessation success has been enhanced by the introduction of effective pharmacotherapies. Sadly, their use in the cardiovascular community has often been impeded by assumptions and misconceptions...
Source: Evidence-Based Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Tags: Smoking and tobacco, Clinical trials (epidemiology), Drugs: cardiovascular system, Stroke, Hypertension, Ischaemic heart disease, Unwanted effects / adverse reactions, Lipid disorders, Health education, Smoking Harm Source Type: research