Patient management in a tobacco-cessation program in the dental practice

Smoking and smokeless tobacco can cause significant damage to the oral cavity, including life-threatening cancers. Consequently, dentists and their office staffs should and can play an influential role in advising their patients to quit using tobacco. The National Cancer Institute has developed the "Four A's" approach to tobacco-cessation counseling: (1) ask about tobacco use; (2) advise to quit; (3) assist with quitting; and (4) arrange for follow-up. With minimal expenditures of treatment time, the dentist and office staff can encourage patients to quit using tobacco through nonconfrontational messages that point out the clinical damage caused by smoking and smokeless tobacco. Besides behavior modification, dentists can prescribe several Food and Drug Administration-approved pharmaceutical agents as adjuncts to a tobacco-cessation program. Nicotine polacrilex (gum) and nicotine transdermal systems have proven very useful in helping tobacco users quit their habit.