Electronic cigarettes worked just as well as nicotine patches to help smokers quit, according to the first study to compare them.

E-cigarettes are battery-operated products that look like real cigarettes and turn nicotine into a vapor inhaled by the user. Since the devices hit the market nearly a decade ago, sales have spiked so quickly some analysts predict they will outsell traditional cigarettes within a decade. E-cigarettes are often marketed as a less harmful alternative to traditional smokes and come in flavors including cinnamon, vanilla and cherry.

A sales associate demonstrates the use of a electronic cigarette and the smoke like vapor that comes from it in Aurora, Colo. on Wednesday, March 2, 2011. Children - like adults - are increasingly trying electronic cigarettes, according to the first large national study to gauge use by middle and high school students. About 2 percent of the students said they’d used an e-cigarette in the previous month, according to a survey done in 2012. That was up from 1 percent in 2011. Results were released Thursday, Sept. 5, 2013 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)
A sales associate demonstrates the use of a electronic cigarette and the smoke like vapor that comes from it in Aurora, Colo. on Wednesday, March 2, 2011. Children – like adults – are increasingly trying electronic cigarettes, according to the first large national study to gauge use by middle and high school students. About 2 percent of the students said they’d used an e-cigarette in the previous month, according to a survey done in 2012. That was up from 1 percent in 2011. Results were released Thursday, Sept. 5, 2013 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)
A sales associate demonstrates the use of a electronic cigarette and the smoke like vapor that comes from it in Aurora, Colo. on Wednesday, March 2, 2011. Children – like adults – are increasingly trying electronic cigarettes, according to the first large national study to gauge use by middle and high school students. About 2 percent of the students said they’d used an e-cigarette in the previous month, according to a survey done in 2012. That was up from 1 percent in 2011. Results were released Thursday, Sept. 5, 2013 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)

“This research provides an important benchmark for e-cigarettes,” said Chris Bullen, director of the National Institute for Health Innovation at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, the study’s lead author. Until now, there has been little information about the effectiveness or safety of e-cigarettes. “We have now shown they are about as effective as a standard nicotine replacement product.”

Bullen and colleagues recruited 657 adult smokers in Auckland who wanted to quit for the study. Nearly 300 got nicotine-containing e-cigarettes while roughly the same number got nicotine patches. Just over 70 people got placebo e-cigarettes without any nicotine. Each group used the e-cigarettes or patches for 13 weeks.

After six months, similar rates of smokers — 6 to 7 percent — managed to quit after using either the nicotine-containing e-cigarettes or patches. Only 4 percent of smokers using the placebo e-cigarettes successfully quit.

Among smokers who hadn’t managed to quit, nearly 60 percent of those using e-cigarettes had cut down the number of cigarettes smoked by at least half versus 41 percent of those using nicotine patches. Smokers were also much bigger fans of the e-cigarettes; nearly 90 percent of users said they would recommend them to a friend compared to just over half of people who got patches.

Researchers also found similar rates of side effects in smokers that used the e-cigarettes and the patches. The most common side effect in all groups was breathing problems.

Peter Hajek, an anti-smoking expert at Queen Mary University of London, called it a “pioneering” study and said health officials should seriously consider recommending e-cigarettes to smokers who want to quit or cut down.

“E-cigarettes also have the potential to replace cigarettes as a consumer product, so their value is not just as a treatment,” he said. Hajek authored an accompanying commentary in the Lancet. “That could stop the tobacco-related disease and death epidemic if everyone switches to a safer way of nicotine delivery,” he said.