People with lung cancer who participate in a smoking cessation program can achieve smoking abstinence rates of more than 30%, according to research presented at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) World Conference on Lung Cancer.
A team of U.K. researchers developed the Yorkshire Enhanced Stop Smoking (YESS) trial, which offered support to people who attended a lung health event. Forms of support included an interventional track with a booklet of annotated CT images of the participants' heart and lungs and a standard track that comprised smoking cessation information communicated by a healthcare practitioner.
Presenter Rachel Murray, PhD, of the University of Nottingham and colleagues found that of 2,150 people offered this support, 1,003 smokers took advantage of it, with 52.5% of these individuals assigned to the intervention group. The researchers also discovered the following:
- The seven-day smoking abstinence rates following a lung health check in the intervention group were 33.6% and 30% in the control group.
- At three months after a lung health check, smoking abstinence rates were 29.3% in the intervention group and 28.6% in the control group.
"The presence of a co-located stop smoking service and offer of immediate, opt-out delivery of behavioral and pharmacological support for quitting results in a high uptake by people who smoke and attended a lung screening event," Murray said in a statement released by the IASLC.
![Images show the pectoralis muscles of a healthy male individual who never smoked (age, 66 years; height, 178 cm; body mass index [BMI, calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared], 28.4; number of cigarette pack-years, 0; forced expiratory volume in 1 second [FEV1], 97.6% predicted; FEV1: forced vital capacity [FVC] ratio, 0.71; pectoralis muscle area [PMA], 59.4 cm2; pectoralis muscle volume [PMV], 764 cm3) and a male individual with a smoking history and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) (age, 66 years; height, 178 cm; BMI, 27.5; number of cigarette pack-years, 43.2, FEV1, 48% predicted; FEV1:FVC, 0.56; PMA, 35 cm2; PMV, 480.8 cm3) from the Canadian Cohort Obstructive Lung Disease (i.e., CanCOLD) study. The CT image is shown in the axial plane. The PMV is automatically extracted using the developed deep learning model and overlayed onto the lungs for visual clarity.](https://img.auntminnie.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/03/genkin.25LqljVF0y.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&crop=focalpoint&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
