Old product might help smokers quit

Drug used in Eastern Europe for decades beats nicotine patch in short-term test

A compound called cytisine, used in Eastern Europe since the 1960s as a smoking-cessation drug, works better than nicotine replacement therapy in a quit test, researchers report in the Dec. 18 New England Journal of Medicine.

Scientists in New Zealand randomly assigned 1,310 smokers to get cytisine tablets or nicotine patches, gum and lozenges.