The EAGLE has Landed! Reassuring the Safety and Efficacy of Drugs for Smoking Cessation in Mental Illness

Persons diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder consume nearly half of all cigarettes smoked in the United States!  Seven first-line therapies have shown to increase long-term abstinence rates, with bupropion sustained release (SR) doubling and varenicline tripling the odds of quitting. However, the FDA issued black box warnings in 2009 regarding increased neuropsychiatric events and suicidality with bupropion and varenicline use.  Thus many clinicians have been reluctant to prescribe these agents in persons with mental illness.  The EAGLES study compared the efficacy of non-nicotine therapies to nicotine replacement therapy in smokers with mental illness