| Résumé : |
Varenicline, which will be called Champix in the UK, is due to be launched on prescription in
early December 2006. We are publishing this guidance to help smoking cessation advisers
and other health professionals decide how to manage anticipated demand for this new stop
smoking medication. In this paper we briefly describe varenicline, review the evidence that it
works, and make recommendations on how to use it, based on the research evidence, the
SPC (Summary of Product Characteristics), and expert opinion.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) will be issuing their guidance
on varenicline around the late spring or early summer of 2007, and therefore this document
gives interim guidance only. Furthermore, because varenicline is a new, centrally acting
drug, with limited time yet for adverse effects to emerge, we have not made a
recommendation as to whether it should be a first or second line smoking cessation
treatment. We think this judgment should be made by the prescribing physician in
consultation with the smoker, following a discussion of efficacy and safety profiles of
available treatments, contraindications and precautions, and taking into account patient
preference and experience of other treatments. When the NICE guidance is published there
will be more experience of the drug, including of adverse events.
|
Varenicline (2006)
