Context

The importance of smoking cessation in the prevention and management of cardiovascular disease cannot be overestimated. Exposure to tobacco products, beginning in utero, causes substantial damage to vascular health, imposing dramatic public and personal health burdens over a lifetime. Smokers lose, on average, 10 years of life expectancy.1 Smoking cessation is the most powerful preventive intervention available—particularly to those already suffering from cardiovascular disease.2 Systematic approaches to the identification and treatment of smokers with front-line pharmacotherapies, particularly in cardiovascular settings, have demonstrated significant benefit in inducing and maintaining …