Smoking Cessation and Menstrual Cycle Phase: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Status:
Not yet recruiting
Trial end date:
2025-08-31
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Tobacco use is a risk factor for at least 20 types of cancer and remains the leading
preventable cause of cancer in Canada (Poirier et al., 2019; World Health Organization,
2020). Smoking cessation is an important cancer prevention strategy for the close to 2
million Canadian women who currently smoke (Statistics Canada, 2020). However, findings from
controlled trials and real-world clinical settings indicate that women have greater
difficulty achieving abstinence following a quit attempt than men (Piper et al., 2010; Smith
et al., 2016). There is some evidence that hormonal levels and fluctuations throughout the
menstrual cycle (MC) may contribute to the greater difficulty women experience when trying to
quit smoking (Weinberger et al., 2015). In this study, we will test targeting the start of a
quit attempt using nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) to specific phases of MC. We
hypothesize that starting a quit attempt during the first half of MC (follicular phase) will
result in increased quit success compared to starting during the second half of MC (luteal
phase) or the usual practice of not targeting quit start date to MC phase (Carpenter et al.,
2008; Franklin et al., 2008; Weinberger et al., 2015).