A new study shows that a smoking cessation treatment program delivered at community oncology care settings can nearly double quit rates for cancer patients who currently smoke. Investigators from Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center led a randomized clinical trial for the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group (ECOG-ACRIN), testing a treatment program that includes virtual therapy and nicotine replacement medications. Results, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology , show that the intervention was well utilized and nearly doubled the quit rate at 6 months’ post-treatment.
English- and Spanish-speaking participants received standard-of-care treatment for their cancer as directed by their oncologist, plus either referral to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Quitline—a free counseling service accessible by phone—or up to 11 telehealth sessions with tobacco cessation counselors and free nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) in the form of lozenges and skin patches. The study found that the more sessions participants completed, the higher their likelihood of quitting. The program was both cost-effective and satisfying for patients, supporting its potential nationwide implementation.
“Persistent smoking among patients diagnosed with cancer is associated with adverse clinical outcomes, yet tobacco treatment has not been well-integrated into community oncology settings,” said corresponding and lead author Elyse R. Park, PhD, MPH, Program Director of the Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute’s Smokefree Support Service, and a psychologist in the Mass General Brigham Departments of Psychiatry and Medicine. Park co-led the clinical trial for ECOG-ACRIN with Jamie S. Ostroff, Chief, Behavioral Sciences Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. “Tobacco treatment is simply essential for quality, comprehensive cancer care, and our study shows virtual, sustained cessation treatment is an effective way to accomplish that.”
Around 15% of newly diagnosed cancer patients smoke, and many continue after diagnosis. For the roughly 80% of patients who receive their cancer care at community sites (rather than at academic hospitals), a validated, effective smoking cessation program does not yet exist. The findings from this study support the benefit of adopting sustained tobacco treatment within community-based oncology care settings nationwide.
Virtual, sustained cessation treatment, delivered along with the medications patients receive to treat their cancer, has had recent successes in academic hospital settings, as lead authors Park and Ostroff had previously reported in JAMA in 2020. ECOG-ACRIN designed the Smoke-Free Support Study 2.0 (EAQ171CD, NCT03808818) to determine if patients in community-based settings could get those same benefits. The study enrolled 306 participants who were recently diagnosed with cancer, from 37 community care sites around the country. All sites were part of the NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP).
Participants were enrolled from August 2019 through December 2022 and randomized into two groups. The intervention group—which received standard care along with sustained telehealth counseling plus NRT patches and lozenges—was nearly four times as likely to use safe and effective smoking cessation medications and reported nearly double the six-month quit rate of the enhanced usual care group.
“Our findings show that patients are willing to engage in virtual sustained tobacco treatment and that this approach can meaningfully improve quit rates in community-based oncology practice,” said Ostroff. “Virtual sustained counseling combined with nicotine replacement therapy offers a practical, cost-effective and scalable model of tobacco treatment delivery that can reach patients wherever they receive care.”
Authorship: In addition to Park and Ostroff, co-authors from Mass General Brigham and Memorial Sloan Kettering include Brett M. Goshe, Angela Wangari Walter, Susan Regan, Rachel Rosen, Natalie Durieux, Autumn W. Rasmussen, Douglas E. Levy, Gabriella Nicolosi, Alona Muzikansky, Laura Malloy, Irina Gonzalez, and Lucy Finkelstein-Fox. Additional co-authors across multiple ECOG-ACRIN member institutions include JoRean D. Sicks, Ilana F. Gareen, Benjamin A. Herman, Alexander Taurone, Seth Bittig, Michael A. Thompson, Michelle Lui, Nathan D. Munson, Molly M. Greenwade, David M. King, Bharat Jenigiri, Brian L. Burnette, Alyssa D. Throckmorton, Martha S. Tingen, Ruth C. Carlos, and Lynne I. Wagner.
Paper cited: Park ER et al. “Virtual Sustained Tobacco Treatment for Patients With Cancer: A Randomized Controlled Trial (ECOG-ACRIN: EAQ171CD) Within the National Cancer Institute Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP)” JCO DOI: 10.1200/JCO-25-02267
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About Mass General Brigham
Mass General Brigham is an integrated academic health care system, uniting great minds to solve the hardest problems in medicine for our communities and the world. Mass General Brigham connects a full continuum of care across a system of academic medical centers, community and specialty hospitals, a health insurance plan, physician networks, community health centers, home care, and long-term care services. Mass General Brigham is a nonprofit organization committed to patient care, research, teaching, and service to the community. In addition, Mass General Brigham is one of the nation’s leading biomedical research organizations with several Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals. For more information, please visit massgeneralbrigham.org.
Journal of Clinical Oncology
Randomized controlled/clinical trial
People
Virtual Sustained Tobacco Treatment for Patients With Cancer: A Randomized Controlled Trial (ECOG-ACRIN: EAQ171CD) Within the National Cancer Institute Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP)
14-Jul-2026
Park and Ostroff receive royalties from UpToDate.