This could be a step forward which is terribly important for smokers who cannot give up

Professor Gordon McVie

The treatment was tested on 1,800 smokers.

Restrictions on where and when people can smoke means many people are smoking fewer cigarettes, but they are inhaling harder, so their nicotine dependence is still high.

Nearly one in four (24%) of those people who tried the lozenges gave up cigarettes and were still not smoking six months later. Just 10% of those who were given a placebo were as successful.

Best result

NiQuitin is available on prescription

Professor Gordon McVie, director general of the Cancer Research Campaign, said: "That is the best result I have seen for a nicotine replacement therapy.

"This could be a step forward which is terribly important for smokers who cannot give up."

Nicotine is absorbed very quickly through the mouth. Just one suck on a cigarette is usually enough to get the beginnings of a high.

Nicotine chewing gum was thought maybe to mimic this. However, many people do not like to chew gum, and the product is not particularly effective at maintaining nicotine levels in the blood.

The lozenges are more effective, because they can be sucked at regular intervals throughout the day. It takes just seven seconds for the nicotine released by a lozenge to impact on the brain.

The lozenges are designed to be taken over a 12-week period, with smokers gradually reducing the number they suck each day.

Dosage is determined by how soon a smoker craves a cigarette upon waking in the morning.

Somebody who lights up within 30 minutes is classified as a heavy smoker.

This measure is deemed to be more accurate way of measuring dependency than counting how many cigarettes a person smokes during the day.

More than seven out of ten smokers interviewed in the year 2000 said they would like to give up, and over three-quarters said they had tried to give up in the past.

Government plea

Jean King, the CRCs director of education, said: "We hope the government will make all effective cessation methods as available as possible, while tightening the regulations around tobacco and banning tobacco advertising.

"It is also important that people realise it is never too late to give up smoking. Smokers who stop before the age of 35 years have an expectation of life not significantly different from non-smokers.

"Even people who stop in middle age, before the onset of cancer or some other serious disease, can avoid most of the later excess risk from tobacco.

"The more people we can encourage to quit successfully, and we know NRT can play a valuable part in this, the more lives will be saved in the future."