Cytisine versus varEnicline for Smoking cesSATion – The CESSATE study

March 2018
Staff: 

NDARC:
Dr Dennis Thomas
Dr Ryan Courtney
Miss Reshika Chand
Professor Michael Farrell

Project description: 

The majority of smokers want to quit smoking but stopping is hard. The CESSATE study is comparing two medicines, Desmoxan and Champix, to understand how good they are at helping people to stop smoking.

Desmoxan, also called cytisine, is a medicine that comes from plant sources such as Golden Rain. It has been used in Europe for more than 50 years to help people to stop smoking. It does not contain nicotine. Desmoxan is currently not available in Australia. Champix, also called varenicline, is currently available and widely used in Australia.

Desmoxan and Champix act similarly by reducing the reward you get from smoking. They also make withdrawal symptoms less severe. What we don’t know about these medicines is if one is better than the other, or if they are equally as good at helping people to stop smoking.

We plan to recruit 1,266 people into the CESSATE study. All participants will be in the study for seven months and receive five telephone calls during this period.

If you would like to know more about the study please read our participant information sheet. This sheet will tell you more about the study, who can and cannot participate, and what it involves. 

If you are interested in the study please call 1800 290 612 or email cessate@unsw.edu.au.

For full details of this project please visit the NDARC website.