Researchers at Northwestern University Medical School provided doctors with a short, confidential questionnaire on habits and experimentation to give to 124 high-school students. In addition, a urine test was conducted to detect cotinine, a smoking byproduct.

Researchers reported that doctors correctly identified 92 percent of smokers in the group.

The authors of the study concluded that these two measures could help doctors identify budding teenage cigarette smokers and target those who can be helped before they become addicted.

"Though the primary causes of smoking remain social, and nicotine addiction is difficult to treat, physicians remain the most trusted carriers of the anti-smoking message," the study said. "Because cigarette smoking begins in early adolescence, the anti-smoking message should be part of health maintenance visits beginning at 10 to 11 years of age, particularly in high-risk situations in which it is known that the patient has family members who smoke, friends who smoke, or other risk factors."

The study is published in the January issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, published by the American Medical Association.

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