Tobacco.org

• Rapid review / The prospects for immunotherapy in smoking cessation 

Conclusions

Animal studies suggest that a nicotine vaccine is a biologically plausible immunotherapeutic intervention that could be used to successfully assist cigarette smokers to cease smoking. It has several potential advantages over existing pharmacotherapeutic aids to smoking cessation: it sequesters nicotine in the bloodstream, thereby preventing it from entering the brain, it may have fewer side-effects than drugs that act on the CNS, and it is likely to have better compliance than oral drugs. Animal studies, and early clinical trials of a cocaine vaccine, suggest that trials of a nicotine vaccine are warranted for relapse prevention. A nicotine vaccine need not be perfect to reduce relapse to smoking. Its preventive use in adolescents needs to be approached with caution, and only after considerable experience in using the vaccine for relapse prevention in adult smokers. But concerns about raising unrealistic expectations of the preventive role of a nicotine vaccine in adolesence should not be allowed to undermine its potential value as an aid to relapse prevention and smoking cessation in adult cigarette smokers.

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