Until recently, the best evidence for whether e-cigarettes help people quit came from a pilot study of 40 hard-core smokers in Italy, all recruited on the basis that none intended to quit (
BMC Public Health,
doi.org/dhd5vr). Six months later, nine of them, or 23 per cent, had given up, though six of this nine continued using the e-cigarettes. In all, 22 of the 40 had either quit or more than halved their consumption of cigarettes.
Now, the same researchers are about to publish a larger, year-long study of 300 smokers again who had not been trying to quit. Although the full results are under peer review, the indications are encouraging. Lead author,
Riccardo Polosa of the University of Catania in Italy, says that 9 per cent of the smokers quit, and a further 20 to 25 per cent cut intake of real cigarettes by at least half. This compares with an annual quit rate of just 0.2 per cent in Italian smokers, says Polosa, who is also a consultant for the Arbi Group in Milan, which manufactured and supplied "Categoria" e-cigarettes for the pilot study.
In a further trial, published this month in
Environmental Research and Public Health, Polosa and colleagues reported e-cigarettes helped some smokers with schizophrenia battle their habit (
doi.org/kjc). Seven of the 14 volunteers more than halved their daily consumption of cigarettes, and another two quit altogether. Polosa says the trial is a good test because the volunteers were heavy smokers.
The most telling results of all should emerge in September from New Zealand, where e-cigarettes and nicotine patches are being compared head-to-head with 657 smokers in a trial called
Ascend. "It will allow us to draw inferences about how e-cigs perform against patches, the most widely used 'gold standard' cessation treatment," says Chris Bullen, head of the trial at the National Institute for Health Innovation in Auckland.
Another crucial trial is under way in the UK on Nicadex, which CN Creative hopes will help persuade the MHRA. Henderson says that, unlike many rival products, Nicadex e-cigarettes would be made to the exacting quality and safety standards demanded of pharmaceuticals. For example, delivering exactly the same amount of nicotine with each puff.
