NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Long-term smokers offered a smoking cessation program when they were hospitalised for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease problems were more than twice as likely to be non-smokers one year later than those not offered a smoking cessation program, researchers from Denmark report.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) includes non-reversible conditions like emphysema and chronic bronchitis that impede breathing.

"Smoking cessation will slow down this process and should therefore be thought of as a treatment in the patients still smoking," Anders Borglykke told Reuters Health.

Borglykke, a PhD student from the Research Centre for Prevention and Health at Glostrup University Hospital, and colleagues assessed smoking cessation rates among 121 patients offered participation in a nurse-led smoking cessation program. The five-week programme included behavioural modification and nicotine replacement if needed.

The investigators compared one-year smoking abstention rates in the intervention group and in a comparison "control" group of 102 patients given only standard information on the benefits of not smoking.

The study participants were 66 years old on average and had smoked for about 48 years, the researchers report in The Clinical Respiratory Journal.

Of the patients offered the smoking cessation programme, 36 (30 percent) had stopped smoking after one year. By contrast, just 13 (13 percent) of the control group were not smoking at this time point.

Patients in the intervention group also reported more improvement in cough, phlegm, shortness of breath and overall health and quality of life than those not offered smoking cessation, Borglykke and colleagues report.

During the subsequent 5 years, the intervention group had fewer COPD-related hospital admissions and spent fewer days hospitalised for COPD problems than did patients in the control group.

This study, done in a real-life setting, shows that promising results can be obtained from a hospital-based initiative among smokers with COPD, the investigators conclude.