What's the most cost-effective way to help smokers quit?

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-01-24 03:00

International

CC-0. Story by Dr Joe Milton, Australian Science Media Centre

US scientists say eight sessions of telehealth counselling combined with two weeks of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is the most cost-effective way to help smokers quit the habit at around $4,500 per patient. The team compared eight combinations of quitting methods in 642 people who were being screened for lung cancer, including varying amounts of counselling and NRT. They found the sweet spot for cost-effectiveness led to just as many patients quitting the smokes as the other treatment strategies they evaluated. The findings should be useful for health systems considering integrating smoking cessation programs with lung cancer screening, the authors conclude.

Attachments

Note: Not all attachments are visible to the general public. Research URLs will go live after the embargo ends.

Research JAMA, Web page The URL will go live after the embargo ends

Journal/
conference: JAMA Network Open

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Mongan Institute Health Policy Research Center, USA

Funder: This work was supported by grant R01CA218123 from the NCI. Dr Hassan received support from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (grant R38-HL150212).

Media Contact/s

Contact details are only visible to registered journalists.