Leveraging primary care in the fight against lung cancer

In recent years, the decline in youth smoking rates has stopped as the tobacco industry strives to successfully reclaim market areas where it has lost favor. The plateau in lung cancer incidence and stagnation in progress toward smoking abstinence illustrates the necessity for renewed efforts to fight tobacco use. Barriers to fighting tobacco use exist in both the clinical arena and within the general population, but can be overcome. Primary care physicians (PCPs) are uniquely poised to successfully treat nicotine dependence with strategic targeting of these barriers, improved training in smoking cessation techniques, and focused political efforts in tobacco control. Herein, this article describes the landscape of tobacco use in America and provides background, methodology, and resources for PCPs to help achieve the goals of Healthy People 2010 in reducing the illness, disability, and death that occur as a result of tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke.