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• Wearing Patch for 6 Months May Help Smokers Quit  

If you're trying to quit smoking, wearing a nicotine patch for up to six months—far longer than is generally recommended—may increase your chances of staying smoke-free, a new study has found.

Even with the longer treatment, however, your chances of successfully quitting are only about 1 in 7, according to the study, which was funded by the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

“There’s an assumption that nicotine dependence is an acute disease that can be treated with short-term therapy,” says Caryn Lerman, PhD, one of the study's authors and the director of the Tobacco Use Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania. “Smokers should talk to their health-care provider about whether it makes sense for them to continue on the nicotine patch for an extended period of time as an alternative to returning to smoking.”

In the new study, published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine, 568 adult smokers who were otherwise healthy wore a 21-milligram nicotine patch (Nicoderm CQ brand) for eight weeks.

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