Dedert EA, et al. - In 81 people with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) who smoked cigarettes, researchers examined if smoking cessation rates could be enhanced by wearing an active nicotine patch before the smoking quit date. In addition, they sought for mechanisms of treatment response, such as decreased cigarette craving and symptom relief from smoking in this double-blind parallel randomized controlled trial. Ecological momentary assessments of PTSD symptoms, smoking withdrawal symptoms, and cravings were done before and after smoking a cigarette during one week of ad lib smoking and then three weeks of either a nicotine patch (n=37) or placebo patch (n=44) preceding the quit date. Those in the nicotine patch cohort vs placebo experienced diminished relief from PTSD reexperiencing symptoms, smoking withdrawal symptoms, and cigarette craving after smoking a cigarette. However, both had low quit rates indicating the insufficiency of nicotine patch preloading as an intensive treatment for achieving smoking cessation in people with PTSD.