Washington, Nov 3 A new study has revealed that nicotine patch in combination with a nicotine lozenge can effectively help smokers kick the butt.

The researchers from University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention, Madison showed that smokers using a patch and nicotine lozenge were also more likely to have quit at seven days and tended to have other more positive outcomes.

For the study, lead researcher Dr Megan E. Piper recruited 1,504 adults. All had smoked at least 10 cigarettes a day during the previous six months and were motivated to quit.

The participants were randomly assigned to one of six treatment groups: nicotine lozenge alone, nicotine patch alone, bupropion alone, patch plus nicotine lozenge, bupropion plus nicotine lozenge or placebo.

Bupropion treatment began one week before a designated quit date and continued for eight weeks.

The findings revealed that only the individuals in the patch plus nicotine lozenge group were more successful in quitting cigarettes.

"The present results suggest that the nicotine lozenge can also be effective as an adjuvant [additional treatment] to the nicotine patch," the authors write.

"The key seems to be that an ad libitum, or as needed, agent must be paired with the patch; simply using higher patch doses does not seem to augment outcomes to the same degree."

However lozenge, though effective with the patch, did not appear to work any better than placebo when used alone.

The study appears in Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. (ANI)