Patent ID: 7262060

Claim:
A method for assessing nicotine dependence, which comprises measuring a whole blood, serum or platelet-rich plasma serotonin level in a smoker and rating the whole blood, serum or platelet-rich plasma serotonin level on such a scale that the higher it is, the higher nicotine dependence is, where said method further comprises assessing nicotine dependence in the smoker during treatment for smoking cessation at a clinic that includes both nicotine replacement therapies and non-nicotine therapies, and correlating the whole blood, serum or platelet-rich plasma serotonin level with the progression of the treatment for smoking cessation, wherein the whole blood, serum or platelet-rich plasma serotonin level is measured during the treatment for smoking cessation and the same decreases during the treatment to a desired level, thereby indicating the nicotine dependence of the patient decreases during the treatment, wherein nicotine dependence in the smoker is assessed using blood samples collected from the same smoker at different times with the progression in the treatment.