E-cigarette use may not result in long-term smoking cessation

DENVER — The use of electronic-cigarettes greatly improved the likelihood of smoking abstinence in study participants after 1 month, but the effect diminished at later follow-ups, according to data presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference.“From our meta-analysis, looking at smoking abstinence, we found out that at 1 month there was a statistically significant effect in achieving smoking abstinence comparing e-cigarette to placebo e-cigarette,” Riyad Al-Lehebi, MD, respirology fellow at the University of Toronto, told Healio.com/Pulmonology. “But when we looked into the long-term effect at 3 and 6 months, we no longer found significant effects on quitting.”