July 25, 2011 - After a heart attack, resuming smoking when leaving the hospital can raise a patient’s risk of dying as much as five-fold, according to a study led by Dr. Furio Colivicchi of San Filippo Neri Hospital in Rome. To gauge the effects of resuming smoking after a heart “event” and to see how many people are likely to relapse, researchers tracked 1294 patients who reported being regular smokers before they were hospitalized with acute coronary syndrome. All of the participants had ceased smoking in the hospital and declared themselves to be motivated to continue abstaining when they were released. A total of 63 percent of patients had relapsed by the end of the first year, and about half had begun smoking 20 days after leaving the hospital. The researchers found that resuming smoking raised a person’s risk of death three-fold compared to patients who didn’t relapse. The earlier a patient fell off the wagon, the more likely he or she was to die within a year—those that resumed smoking within 10 days of leaving the hospital were five times as likely to die as those who continued to abstain. The results indicate a need to improve the way doctors help patients quit smoking. Colivicchi stated that a successful program to help patients quit should take “a comprehensive long-term approach, including individual counseling, post-discharge support and pharmacological treatment.”

For more information, please visit http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/22/us-smoking-idUSTRE76L2ZP20110722