Tobacco Dependence and Treatment Possibilities

Overview

Tobacco dependence is a chronical, lethal disease which will be the cause of the death of each6th person on the Earth in the coming decades. In order to improve smoking cessation rates, newtreatment has to be developed. Current interventions include behavioral and pharmacologicaltreatment with nicotine replacement therapy and sustained-release bupropion as fi rst line approach.New drugs, mainly infl uencing the smoking interactions in the brain (e.g. nicotine agonists andantagonists), are under development, including vaccines.

Key words:
tobacco dependence, behavioral intervention, nicotine replacement therapy, bupropion,nicotine receptors agonists and antagonists, vaccines.