TY - JOUR T1 - Nicotine treatment and smoking cessation in the era of COVID-19 pandemic: an interesting alliance JF - ERJ Open Research JO - erjor DO - 10.1183/23120541.00306-2020 VL - 6 IS - 3 SP - 00306-2020 AU - Afroditi K. Boutou AU - Georgia Pitsiou AU - Theodore Kontakiotis AU - Ioannis Kioumis Y1 - 2020/07/01 UR - http://openres.ersjournals.com/content/6/3/00306-2020.abstract N2 - Since the declaration of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak as a pandemic, the worldwide medical community has been racing against time to identify effective therapeutic agents to constrain the disease and reduce the effects of severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Recently, the nicotinic hypothesis has been proposed; according to this, the acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) might play a key role in the pathophysiology of COVID-19 and, thus, should be a potential therapeutic target to reduce COVID-19 burden and its complications [1]. Since nicotine replacement therapy has long been used to treat tobacco dependence, this is an interesting hypothesis with important implications.In the era of this pandemic, the role of medicinal nicotine in the prevention and treatment of #COVID19 disease should be evaluated in placebo-controlled trials, while smoking cessation should be further promoted as a general public health measure https://bit.ly/3fpsBdq ER -