Nicotine Replacement Therapy: An Overview

Today tobacco use is the single greatest preventable cause of death in the world. Tobacco use is often incorrectly perceived to be solely a personal choice. This is contradicted by the fact that when fully aware of the health impact, most tobacco users want to quit but find it difficult to stop due to the addictiveness of nicotine. Henceforth, Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) came into existence which temporarily replaces much of the nicotine from tobacco to reduce motivation to consume tobacco and nicotine withdrawal symptoms, thus easing the transition from cigarette smoking to complete abstinence. Various alternative nicotine sources (gum, transdermal patch, nasal spray, inhaler and sublingual tablets/lozenges) have been incorporated into tobacco cessation programs. Recent research is more focusing on rapid delivery of nicotine (Nicotine preloading, true pulmonary inhaler) and immunological approaches (nicotine vaccine) to tackle nicotine dependence. These NRTs are in general well tolerated and have minimal adverse effects. The review aims to summarize literature on various modes of nicotine replacement therapy methods currently used to treat nicotine dependence, and to give an overview about future possible approaches to treat tobacco use disorder.