Efficacy of Varenicline on Smoking Cessation at the Acute Phase of an Exacerbation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2015-11-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the bronchi
with an increasing prevalence. By 2020, the mortality related to COPD is expected to become
the 3rd leading death worldwide. COPD is caused by smoking in approximately 90 % of the
cases. Nevertheless, COPD remains under-diagnosed and more than half of patients remain
active smokers. Brittany is the second region of France facing an abnormal high death rate
related to COPD. Smoking cessation is the most effective therapeutic approach to reduce the
evolution of the disease, the frequency of the exacerbations and the the mortality. Besides,
smoking cessation is associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular events and cancer.
Given the COPD patients' strong addiction, smoking cessation is not easily obtained in such
population. Furthermore, smoking cessation has been underestimated in several studies. Most
of these studies evaluated various methods of smoking cessation in COPD patients performed
after an exacerbation, which has a hospitalization related mortality of approximately 10%.
Thus, there is an urgent need to find effective pharmacotherapies to help COPD patients to
cease smoking. Varenicline, a partial agonist at a4ß2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors is
reported to be one of the most effective pharmacotherapies for smoking cessation. However, it
has never been evaluated at the acute phase of an exacerbation of COPD requiring
hospitalization.