Smokers now have a second medication with which they can quit in just 25 days and which the Ministry of Health will finance once a year for consumers of at least 10 cigarettes a day who have made an attempt to quit the habit in the last year. .
Recigarum, whose active ingredient is cytisinicline, is indicated in adults over 18 years of age for the treatment of smoking dependence and the reduction of nicotine craving in smokers who are willing to quit, which is the “first step” to to get it.
This was highlighted this Tuesday in their presentation by Carlos Andrés Jiménez-Ruiz, pulmonologist expert in Smoking, and Raúl de Simón, National Coordinator of the SEMERGEN Smoking Working Group, together with Marcin Nowak, general director of Adamed, and Víctor M. Millán , director of the Cardiovascular Business Unit of these laboratories.
With a price of 111 euros without financing, patients will be able to benefit from coverage of between 40 and 60% of the price of the medicine, but as long as they meet certain requirements. “We are leaving many smokers out of financing,” lamented Dr. De Simón, pointing out that these conditions are set by the Ministry of Health.
To begin with, they will have to be included in a support program (individual and/or group) for smoking cessation that is implemented in the autonomous community, and they must have that express motivation to quit smoking that can be verified with an attempt in the last anus.
They must be consumers of 10 cigarettes or more per day, and only one attempt per year will be covered; Each prescription will be made for a container, which consists of 100 tablets, which is equivalent to 25 days of treatment.
The main novelty with respect to Todacitan, the other drug paid for by the National Health System, is that Recigarum is presented in the form of a calendared blister to follow the dosage optimally, which facilitates adherence.
From the first to the third day, you must take one tablet every 2 hours up to a maximum of 6; The frequency progressively decreases until it reaches only between one and two pills between days 21 and 25.
The patient should stop smoking the fifth after starting and never do so during treatment because this could worsen the adverse reactions; Those who do not succeed or who relapse as soon as they finish it, will be able to try again after between 2 and 3 months, yes, without Social Security coverage.
During those 25 days, the patient will be monitored through a WhatsApp channel where they can resolve all their doubts.
Cytisinicline has demonstrated an adequate efficacy and safety profile in various studies and trials, which have confirmed that those who opt for this treatment are twice as likely to quit smoking.
As more frequent adverse effects, some of which can also be attributable to quitting tobacco, one in ten patients develops changes in appetite (mainly increase), weight gain, dizziness, irritability, mood changes, anxiety, hypertension, dry mouth, diarrhea, skin rash, or sleep disorders and headache or muscle pain, among others.
Nothing compared to tobacco, responsible for more than 60,000 deaths a year in Spain, 1,100 a week: in the two worst years of the pandemic, between March 2020 and March 2022, covid-19 killed 101,135 people, but tobacco costs more than 122,000, Dr. Jiménez-Ruiz recalled.
“When we talk about smoking we are talking about a chronic, addictive and relapsing disease. Of course it has a solution, it is possible to quit smoking: quitting is the healthiest decision that a smoker can make throughout their life,” he concluded.