A health scare can focus the mind on dealing with bad habits, it seems. Smokers who have a chest CT scan and get suspicious-looking results are more likely to be abstinent from Smoking 3 years later than others who have a normal scan result, new research indicates that.

Chest CT scan screenings for lung cancer “may represent teachable moments and opportunities to enhance motivation for smoking abstinence,” Dr. Matthew M. Clark and colleagues, from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, note.

The findings, which appear in the medical journal Cancer, are based on a study of 926 current smokers and 594 former smokers who were screened annually for lung cancer with chest CT.

Among current smokers, older age, worse lung function, and abnormal CT findings from the previous year that required follow-up were all predictors of being smoke-free at 3-year follow-up.

Moreover, the likelihood of being abstinent was directly related to the number of abnormal screens.

In the former-smoker group, longer duration of abstinence before the initial visit was associated with abstinence from smoking.

“Better understanding of the predictors of smoking cessation, including multiple lung CT scans, may inform the debate on the use of screenings for early-stage lung (cancer) to increase smoking abstinence and will be vital in continuing to develop pharmacologic and behavioral interventions to decrease an individual’s health risks,” the authors conclude.

SOURCE: Cancer, online April 11, 2005.