Smoking cessation is essential for COPD patients. It mitigates the progression of the disease and the loss of ventilatory capacity, thus improving the overall prognosis. Overall mortality can be reduced effectively including mortality from respiratory diseases as well as lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Its main goal must be to initiate tobacco cessation as early as possible after diagnosing COPD so as to enable the patient to influence the course of this disease in the most effective way possible. Depending on the degree of tobacco addiction, the application of behavioural therapy combined with pharmaceutical support has shown to be the most reliable therapy with highest long-term abstinence rates. Particular consideration is needed for patients with psychiatric comorbidity mainly represented by depression. The setting of tobacco cessation measures in outpatient clinics or practices embedded in long-term therapy of the underlying respiratory disease appears to be crucial for long-time abstinence.
Part of the book: COPD