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Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease - Management
How can I support a person with COPD to stop smoking?
- Encourage smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) to stop smoking.
- If the person is not willing to stop smoking, advise them to cut down, as this may still have some symptomatic benefit.
- Document an up-to-date smoking history for people with COPD.
- This should include pack-years smoked, which is the number of cigarettes smoked per day, divided by 20, multiplied by the number of years smoked.
- Unless contraindicated, offer nicotine replacement therapy, varenicline, or bupropion, as appropriate, to people who are planning to stop smoking.
- Drug treatments should be combined with an appropriate support programme to optimize smoking quit rates for people with COPD.
- For more information, see the CKS topic on Smoking cessation.
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