Medicine and Man

Chantix (Varenicline tartarate) is a new pill approved by the FDA to help smokers quit smoking. The July 5, 2006 issue of JAMA has published 3 articles comparing the efficacy of chantix with placebo and another first line drug, bupropion (zyban).

All the three trials demonstrated the efficacy of chantix over both placebo and bupropion in smoking cessation and in maintenance of abstinence. This gives the physicians another first line agent to combat smoking (the other two being nicotine in various forms and bupropion).

Indication for use:-

An aid to smoking cessation. Therefore chantix is no magic drug that taking it will ensure that you will quit smoking. It is just another drug which may assist in smoking cessation in a person who has decided to quit smoking.

Dosage:-

Chantix 1 mg twice daily is given for a period of 12 weeks. An additional period of 12 weeks may be given if the patient has stopped smoking in order to maintain the long term likelihood of abstinence.

Common side effects:-

• Nausea (as many as 30% of participants in the trials published in JAMA reported this side effect)
• Sleep disturbances including abnormal dreams
• Constipation
• Flatulence
• Vomiting
• Headache

To quote the JAMA editorial on Varenicline for smoking cessation:-

“Definite promise, but no panacea”.

Reference – JAMA, FDA
Chantix patient information
Chantix prescribing information

Chantix in the blogosphere – The Corpus Callosum, OnThePharm, Cancer Help & Information, WebMDblog

Technorati Tags: Chantix, Smoking cessation, Smoking, Varenicline

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 9th, 2006 at 7:08 pm and is filed under Health News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.