If you’re a young person who uses e-cigarettes, you’re not alone.

The most recent reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that over 9 million U.S. adults used e-cigarettes in 2020—and that young adults had the highest rates of use.

According to the CDC, 9.4% of adults aged 18 to 24 (almost 1 in 10) reported vaping. Among adults aged 25-44 years, more than 1 in 20 (5.2%) use e-cigarettes.    

The rapid rise of e-cigarette use has outpaced the development of new treatments. Many adult users are looking to their healthcare providers for help to stop vaping – but there are no FDA-approved medications available for e-cigarette users.

A new Mass General clinical research study is testing the effectiveness of a new medication, cytisinicline, as a treatment for e-cigarette cessation.   

Nancy Rigotti, MD, Director of the Tobacco Research and Treatment Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, was the Principal Investigator of a recent large-scale randomized clinical trial testing cytisinicline as a cessation aid for smokers of traditional (combustible) cigarettes.

The results, reported in April 2022, showed that the drug was much more effective than placebo in helping people quit smoking when used for up to 12 weeks. The drug also reduced nicotine withdrawal symptoms and lessened the rewarding effects of nicotine.

As e-cigarettes are essentially a delivery system for vaporized nicotine, Rigotti and her team are now looking to test cytisinicline as a cessation aid for e-cigarette users.

The team has just launched a new 16-week randomized clinical trial and is enrolling healthy volunteers 18 years and older who are daily nicotine e-cigarette users and are ready to quit within two weeks of starting the study.

Participation requires 16 clinic visits (30-60 minutes) and one phone call over four months. Participants will take a pill three times a day. Two-thirds will be randomized to take the active drug, while one-third will take an identical placebo pill.

 All participants will also receive individualized behavioral counseling from MGH tobacco cessation coaches. Parking costs for visits to Mass General will be covered and participants will receive compensation for completing the study.

For more information and to contact the study team, see the study page on the Rally clinical trials website.

Dr. Rigotti is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of the MGH Tobacco Research and Treatment Center. The study is sponsored by Achieve Life Sciences of Seattle, WA, and funded by NIH’s National Institute of Drug Abuse.