Does office spirometry improve quit rates in smokers?
In the third study, 6 primary care sites in Sweden provided spirometry and brief cessation advice to 445 smokers, 119 of whom were found to have abnormal lung function. At 3-year follow-up, 29% of patients with abnormal lung function had quit smoking, compared with 14% of patients with normal lung function (P=.001; NNT=7). Forty-five smokers with mildly abnormal lung function were recruited from this study to participate in another study, which may have biased the results toward higher quit rates among smokers with worse spirometry results.6
Recommendations
The US Preventive Services Task Force recommends against using spirometry to screen for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but advocates screening all adults for tobacco use and encouraging cessation.7
The authors of a Cochrane review found insufficient evidence to recommend using biomedical risk assessment (carbon monoxide blood levels, spirometry, genetic testing for alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency) as a smoking cessation aid.8
