Cessation of long‐term nicotine gum use—a prospective, randomized trial

Nicotine gum is an important adjunct for smoking cessation for many smokers, and long‐term use of nicotine gum will occur in a small percentage of patients. To date, no method of cessation in long‐term users has been studied in a randomized trial. We enrolled 26 subjects at the Mayo Clinic site of the Lung Health Study who had used nicotine gum for more than 6 months to participate in a trial where subjects were randomly assigned to: (1) abrupt cessation, (2) taper with placebo gum, or (3) taper with active gum. At the end of the 6‐week trial, the percentage of subjects abstinent from gum use and not smoking was not different among the three groups: 66.7% for the abrupt cessation group, 71.4% for the taper with placebo gum group and 60% for the taper with active gum group. One subject in the taper with placebo gum group relapsed to smoking during the trial but was abstinent from smoking again at long‐term follow‐up. Long‐term follow‐up (median 284 days) showed 65% of subjects were abstinent from all nicotine products. Motivated subjects can stop long‐term nicotine gum use without relapse to gum use or smoking by either abrupt cessation or brief tapering.