Abstinence, cigarette consumption and health disorders in smokers when quitting and five years later

Abstract

Background: There is little information about ex-smokers which maintain their status a longer period of time.

Objectives: Description of abstinence, cigarette consumption and health disorders in smokers who quit, when finishing the treatment and five years later.

Methods: I made a retrospective study about smokers presented in 2007-2009 period. Initially I used a self-administrated questionnaire and I determined cigarettes consumption(pack-years). After the smoking cessation treatment finished, I measured CO exhaled. At five years, ex-smokers confirmed their status by phone interview. Data were prelucrated per centile and by mean.

Results: There were 495 smokers, median age 39 years, average cigarette consumption 30 pack-years. Main associated disorders: cardio-vascular 22%, pulmonary 9,95%, neuro-psychiatric 5,65%. After treatment: 33,13% were quitting smoking, median age 42 years, mean 28 pack-years, having cardio-vascular (23%), pulmonary(9,14%) and neuro-psychiatric (2,43%) disorders. In five years: non-smokers 8,36% ( 8,48% did not answer to the phone), median age 46 years, 32 pack-years mean, with cardio-vascular(31%), pulmonary(7,31%), neuro-psychiatric(4,87%) disorders.

Conclusions: In our group, the abstinence ratio was 33,13% at the end of treatment and 8,36% after five years.

In all stages of study, the presence of cardio-vascular disorders was 2-6 fold higher vs pulmonary or neuro-psychiatric disorders, which are surprisingly low.

The high cigarette consumption and the age of smokers are not necessarily against smoking cessation.