Personalized Counseling at Lung Cancer Screenings Helps Patients Quit Smoking

The following article features coverage from the IASLC North America Conference on Lung Cancer 2019 meeting. Click here to read more of Cancer Therapy Advisor‘s conference coverage.

Despite the knowledge that smoking is harmful to their health, many patients in lung cancer screening programs report that they are unable to quit. Lung cancer screening programs present a valuable intercession opportunity for clinicians to discuss the benefits of smoking cessation with patients. Research findings presented at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 2019 North America Conference on Lung Cancer (NACLC 2019) in Chicago, Illinois, reported that point-of-service counseling of patients in a lung cancer screening program had promising results, and led some patients to quit.¹

John Pagteilan, MD, of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, and colleagues devised a study in which nurse practitioners provided individual smoking cessation counseling to 263 patients who were smokers at the time they received a lung cancer screening. At the onset of the research, the lung cancer screening program included a high percentage of patients who indicated that they smoked at the time of low dose computed tomography (70.2%). The counseling services were provided as standard of care using an opt-out framework. Counseling included referral to a telephone helpline and group counseling sessions, as well as recommendations of over-the-counter smoking cessation drugs. Of the patients who indicated they were smokers and received counseling at the time of low dose computed tomography, 50% went on to cut down on smoking and 12.9% quit altogether. 

The authors noted that the patients were not directly provided with smoking cessation drugs in the study, which they said may have affected their results. “Cessation rates will likely increase when pharmacotherapy and further counseling is used,” they wrote. “Even in those who do not quit, half of patients decrease[d] the amount used on a daily basis.”

Read more of Cancer Therapy Advisor‘s coverage of the IASLC NACLC 2019 meeting by visiting the conference page.

Reference

1. Steliga M, Barone C, Franklin P, et al. Outcomes of smoking cessation counseling in a surgical clinic. Presented at: International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 2019 North America Conference on Lung Cancer (NACLC 2019); October 10-12, 2019: Chicago, Illinois. Abstract OA02.01