Smoking Clinical Trials 2023

What Are Smoking Clinical Trials?

Smoking is one of the leading causes of death and leads to disease and disability by harming nearly every part of the body. According to the CDC, 16 million+ Americans are living with diseases caused by smoking. In comparison, secondhand smoke exposure leads to 41,000 deaths among nonsmoking adults and 400 deaths among infants yearly.

Smoking can cause lung diseases, diabetes, stroke, cancer, heart diseases, etc., and increase the risk of eye diseases, immune system problems, and tuberculosis.

Many smoking clinical trials focus on the shift from cigarette smoking to e-smoking or other variants to see their health effects.

Why Is Smoking Being Studied Through Clinical Trials?

Globally, tobacco use is universally recognized as the foremost preventable cause of cancer and is responsible for 30% of all cancer-related deaths in the United States. Moreover, the economic burden of smoking can't be ignored. Cigarette smoking cost the U.S. more than $600 billion in 2018, including more than $240 billion in healthcare spending and nearly $372 billion in lost productivity.

What Are The Types of Treatments Available For Smoking?

Study on smoking clinical trials is ongoing. A recent randomized, controlled trial studies the effect of switching from cigarette smoking to e-cigarettes. The 8-cohort parallel study assesses changes in select biomarkers of exposure (BoE) and biomarkers of potential harm (BoPH) in generally healthy smokers switching to investigational study products (IPs). Subjects include smokers, non-smokers, and individuals undergoing smoking abstinence.

Other smoking clinical trials emphasize the need for smoking history and data collection for oncology clinical trials as they affect the outcomes and treatments.

What Are Some Recent Breakthrough Clinical Trials For Smoking?

There have been several landmark studies involving smoking in recent years. Some of the most recent studies are:

2023: Treatment Of Tobacco Smoking - this study concluded that the combination of medication and behavioral counseling while using nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) products was associated with a quit rate of 15.2% over 6 months compared with a quit rate of 8.6% with brief advice or usual care.

2013: Ask-Advise-Connect - there are many healthcare smoking cessation quitlines available, such as AAR programs, but rates of primary care referrals to quitlines are low, and most referred smokers fail to call for assistance. This study focuses on a new approach of Ask-Advice-Connect, where smokers who agreed to be connected, their contact number was sent electronically to the quitline daily, and patients were called proactively by the quitline within 48 hours. As a result, 7.8% of all identified smokers enrolled in treatment.

Who Are Some Of The Key Opinion Leaders / Researchers / Institutions Conducting Smoking Clinical Trial Research?

Institute for Global Tobacco Control's (IGTC)

IGTC aims to develop effective tobacco control interventions to prevent death and disease from tobacco products. IGTC has trained more than 2,000 professionals through capacity-building programs and produced more than 200 articles in peer-reviewed academic journals.

Bartoz Koszowski, PhD

Bartoz Koszowski has done his Pharm.D. (2007) and Ph.D. in Toxicology and Pharmacology (2011) from the Medical University of Silesia, Poland. His current research is focused on the use of tobacco products and various factors that influence user behaviors.