Journal Catch

Cytisine for Smoking Cessation

A literature review and meta-analysis suggests that cytisine is effective for smoking cessation.

Cytisine has been used in Europe for the past 40 years in the treatment of tobacco dependence. For various reasons, a potentially effective treatment for a condition that causes considerable morbidity and mortality in developed countries has remained unnoticed and unpublished in English-language literature.

Cytisine is an alkaloid found in all parts of Cytisus laburnum, the golden rain tree. For decades it has been used as a smoking cessation drug in Eastern Europe, and marketed by a Bulgarian firm as Tabex (http://www.tabex.net)

Cytisine has a molecular structure similar to nicotine and acetylcholine and is an agonist of nicotinic receptors.

Toxicity remains uncertain and the results need the confirmation by state-of-the-art clinical trials.

The question is inevitably raised, how many effective drugs have remained unnoticed because they were not published in English in Western countries? 



THE COMPLETE ARTICLE
Cytisine for Smoking Cessation. A Literature and a Meta-analysis
Jean-Francois Etter, PhD, MPH
ARCH INTERN MED/VOL 166. AUG 14/28,2006
www.archinternmed.com