Study supports e-cigarettes superiority over nicotine patches

Ground-breaking study supports e-cigarettes superiority over nicotine patches

Posted on September 7, 2013 by ACSH

In the first head-to-head comparison between e-cigarettes and nicotine patches (NRT) for helping smokers quit, a significant win for e-cigarettes was found in every measured parameter. Led by Dr. Chris Bullen of the University of Auckland, New Zealand, the researchers recruited 657 smokers who said that they wanted to quit. They were randomized into 3 groups: 289 into an e-cigarette group, 295 in the NRT group, and 73 into what they called a “placebo” group: zero-nicotine e-cigarettes. The selected marketed e-cigarette delivered a fairly low-level nicotine dose, 16 mg., while the NRTs were 21 mg. per daily patch. The study period was for 13 weeks, and the primary outcome measured was abstinence from tobacco confirmed by carbon monoxide breath testing at 6 months follow-up.

The results showed a clear win for the e-cigarette group, with 7.3 percent of that group smokefree, while the NRT group had a success rate of 5.8 percent (the placebo group had a 4.1 percent abstinence rate at 6 months). Due to the unexpectedly low success rate among the entire group, these results, while demonstrating a clear positive trend for e-cigarettes, did not achieve statistical significance. There was no advantage to any of these treatments in terms of adverse effects.

Another important finding was the likelihood of staying on the treatment throughout the study period,  even among those who did not quit completely, and the reduction of cigarette use in those non-quitters. Among those who had not managed to quit after six months, cigarette consumption was markedly reduced in the nicotine e-cigarettes group, compared to the patches and placebo groups: well over half (57%) of the participants in the e-cigarettes group had reduced their daily consumption of cigarettes by at least half after six months, compared to just over two fifths (41%) of the patches group.


In both the nicotine and placebo e-cigarettes groups, a third of participants were still using the devices after six months, compared to under one in ten (8%) of those in the patches group.  When asked whether they would recommend their allocated product to a friend one month after finishing the course, around 9 out of 10 participants in both the e-cigarettes and the placebo groups said they would, compared to just over half (56%) in the patches group.

Read More...

E-Cigarettes May Be as Effective as Patch to Help Smokers Quit

Taking a drag from an e-cigarette may be just as safe and effective as slapping on a nicotine patch for smokers struggling to quit, according to the first physician-run trial to compare the two products.

About one in 20 people who used either patches or e-cigarettes managed to quit completely six months after the test started, according to research published today in The Lancet. Meanwhile, users of electronic cigarettes -- battery-powered devices that deliver vaporized nicotine -- were more likely to have cut their use of the real thing in half even if they didn’t quit entirely.

Enlarge image

E-cigarettes have taken Europe and the U.S. by storm. In France, there are more than 1 million regular users, according to a government commissioned report published in May. Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The 657-person trial wasn’t big enough to draw definite conclusions about whether e-cigarettes are better than nicotine patches, researchers said. Still, the results should be a signal to the regulators in the U.S. and Europe now weighing restrictions on e-cigarettes, Peter Hajek, a professor of clinical psychology at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, said in a comment published alongside the results.

“Health professionals will now hopefully feel easier about recommending e-cigarettes to smokers, or at least condoning their use,” Hajek wrote.

Sales Growth

If European and U.S. regulators treat e-cigarettes as medical devices, yet leave cigarettes on general sale, tobacco makers “will retain their market monopoly, and we will never learn whether e-cigarettes would replace traditional cigarettes if allowed to continue evolving and competing with smoked tobacco on even terms,” he wrote.

The results will also be presented today at the European Respiratory Society’s annual meeting in Barcelona.

E-cigarettes have taken Europe and the U.S. by storm. In France, there are more than 1 million regular users, according to a government-commissioned report published in May. Sales worldwide will probably approach $2 billion by the end of this year and top $10 billion by 2017, according to a forecast by Wells Fargo & Co.

That success has brought scrutiny. The French government said it planned to ban e-cigarettes from public places. The U.K. has moved to treat them as medicines. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration may announce potential restrictions as soon as next month.

Read More...