Correlation and predictive performances of saliva and plasma nicotine concentration on tobacco withdrawal-induced craving.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

To investigate whether saliva is a useful alternative to plasma for routine monitoring of nicotine and evaluate the predictive performances of saliva and plasma concentration on craving estimated by a Tiffany Questionnaire on Smoking Urge-Brief Form.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

Thirteen healthy smokers were enrolled in a randomized, two period, crossover trial.

Linear and power models were evaluated to predict the plasma nicotine concentrations from the saliva measurements, whereas a population PK/PD indirect response model was used to predict craving using either saliva or plasma nicotine concentration as the independent variable.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and crossover study.

Because people in this Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

As a double-blind Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

In the crossover set-up each of the participants took both Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Nicotine, Nicotinic Agonists, Predictive Value of Tests, Saliva, Sensitivity and Specificity, Smoking and Substance Withdrawal Syndrome.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and crossover study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

Results are reported in around 11 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2002 (British journal of clinical pharmacology), a journal based in England.

More context: the Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) compound page, all human trials.