EBPOM 2019 | Overview of perioperative smoking cessation

Smoking is bad for you, there's little debate about that, even among users of the drug. However, further to the widely known consequences, the bottom line in the perioperative period is that smokers are 40% more likely to die after major surgery. Do patients also know this? Tissue healing, increased risk of infection and increased possiblities of complications with the anaesthetic; with these risks in mind how do we cut through the ubiquitous, but often ignored, government health risk messaging and get patients to understand the increased risk for those undergoing surgery? How do we use smoking cessation techniques in the perioperative setting? How do we manage to start, ideally, six weeks before surgery? What is the latest thinking on the neuro psychiatric consequences of smoking cessation? How useful is the Fagerstrom test of nicotine dependence? What about "vaping", is it better than smoking from a perioperative perspective? Presented by David Yates, Consultant in Anaesthesia and Critical Care Medicine at York Teaching Hospital, set up one of the UK's first Perioperative Medicine Services in York, Anaesthesia, Perioperative Medicine and Pain Clinical Lead for the Yorkshire & Humber Comprehensive Research Network.