Lung screening cessation survey
Willingness to engage in smoking cessation intervention among participants in a population-based lung cancer screening pilot
Patient / Population Intervention / Exposition Vergleich Endpunkt
In 487 current smokers or recent quitters in the Flemish ZORALCS lung cancer screening pilot, a course of eight sessions with a smoking cessation expert plus free nicotine replacement therapy, randomised against a flyer advising referral to a healthcare professional or the TABAKSTOP quit line, drew 68.4% enrolment in the embedded cessation trial.
Design
Enrolment report of TAMIRO-STOP, a 1:1 randomised smoking cessation trial embedded in the ZORALCS population-based low-dose CT lung cancer screening pilot (University Hospital Antwerp, ZORA primary care zone; adults aged 55 to 74 with more than 100 lifetime cigarettes and a PLCOm2012 risk of 1.51% or more or a HUNT risk of 0.64% or more); participants who still smoked or had quit less than a year earlier were randomised to a minimal intervention (a flyer advising referral to a healthcare professional or the TABAKSTOP quit line) or to eight sessions with a smoking cessation expert plus free nicotine replacement therapy added to it
Endpunkt
Willingness to enrol in the embedded TAMIRO-STOP cessation trial among eligible screening participants, with first-session attendance and nicotine replacement initiation in the intervention arm as further uptake measures (the trial's own abstinence outcome is not stated in the abstract; the parent registration NCT06293833 lists attendance at a cessation intervention and having quit one year after enrolment as secondary outcomes)
ErgebnisOf 878 screening participants, 487 (55.5%) still smoked or had quit within a year; 333 of them (68.4%) enrolled in the embedded TAMIRO-STOP cessation trial and 45 (9.2%) withdrew after consenting. Of 142 allocated to eight counselling sessions with free nicotine replacement, 102 (71.8%) attended the first session and 38 (26.8%) had started replacement therapy at the 1 January data cut.
Theuns C, Ramaekers K, Gerris A, et al. Presented at ERS Congress 2026, ALERT 1, 6 September. Not yet published.
Diskussion & Kritik
Two in three eligible screening participants agreed to be randomised into a cessation trial, which answers the question the pilot asked: current and recent smokers who turn up for a low-dose CT scan will accept structured cessation support offered alongside it. It is an uptake figure, not a quit rate: the outcome data of the embedded trial are still to come, one in ten withdrew after consenting, and the abstract's own arm counts do not add up to the number enrolled. A single Flemish pilot with a population that had already volunteered once, so the willingness measured is that of people who show up for screening.