Smoking Profiles in Pre-intervention Ischaemic Heart Disease Patients

Smoking cessation intervention is a cost effective method of preserving life and reducing ill health and is believed to be the most effective lifestyle change after a myocardial event. The pre-operative period is particularly useful time to implement smoking cessation advice and to offer help. Smokers undergoing surgery have an increased risk of both intra and post-operative complications. Nearly a six-fold increase in post-operative pulmonary complications in current smokers was demonstrated in a study. There is much debate over the optimum time to stop smoking to reduce post-operative complications. The effects of smoking cessation prior to surgery may be dependent on the length of time cessation occurred before surgery. Our study investigates the smoking profiles of patients awaiting cardiac intervention for ischaemic heart disease and what advice and help these patients are offered. All patients randomly selected had established diagnosis of ischaemic heart disease needing cardiac intervention; either coronary artery graft bypass or angioplasty. This study shows different trends in methods used to successfully give up smoking in the ex-smoking group compared to the methods used in attempting to give up in the smoking group. Smoking cessation advice and the offer of additional services can never be more important in the time prior to cardiac surgery.