Comparison of emissions across tobacco products: A slippery slope in tobacco control

Ahmad El-Hellani; Ayomipo Adeniji; Hanno C Erythropel; Qixin Wang; Thomas Lamb; Vladimir B Mikheev; Irfan Rahman; Irina Stepanov; Robert M Strongin; Theodore L Wagener; Marielle C Brinkman

doi:10.18332/tid/183797

Comparison of emissions across tobacco products: A slippery slope in tobacco control

Tob Induc Dis. 2024 Mar 30:22. doi: 10.18332/tid/183797. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Ahmad El-Hellani^{1

2}, Ayomipo Adeniji^{1

2}, Hanno C Erythropel^{3

4}, Qixin Wang⁵, Thomas Lamb⁵, Vladimir B Mikheev⁶, Irfan Rahman⁵, Irina Stepanov^{7

8}, Robert M Strongin⁹, Theodore L Wagener^{2

10}, Marielle C Brinkman^{2

11}

Affiliations

¹ Division of Environmental Health Sciences, College of Public Health, The Ohio State University, Columbus, United States.
² Center for Tobacco Research, The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbus, United States.
³ Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering & Applied Science, Yale University, New Haven, United States.
⁴ Yale Center for the Study of Tobacco Product Use and Addiction (YCSTP), Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, United States.
⁵ Department of Environmental Medicine, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, United States.
⁶ Battelle Public Health Center for Tobacco Research, Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, United States.
⁷ Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, United States.
⁸ Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, United States.
⁹ Department of Chemistry, Portland State University, Portland, United States.
¹⁰ Department of Internal Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, United States.
¹¹ Division of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, The Ohio State University, Columbus, United States.

Abstract

In this narrative review, we highlight the challenges of comparing emissions from different tobacco products under controlled laboratory settings (using smoking/vaping machines). We focus on tobacco products that generate inhalable smoke or aerosol, such as cigarettes, cigars, hookah, electronic cigarettes, and heated tobacco products. We discuss challenges associated with sample generation including variability of smoking/vaping machines, lack of standardized adaptors that connect smoking/vaping machines to different tobacco products, puffing protocols that are not representative of actual use, and sample generation session length (minutes or number of puffs) that depends on product characteristics. We also discuss the challenges of physically characterizing and trapping emissions from products with different aerosol characteristics. Challenges to analytical method development are also covered, highlighting matrix effects, order of magnitude differences in analyte levels, and the necessity of tailored quality control/quality assurance measures. The review highlights two approaches in selecting emissions to monitor across products, one focusing on toxicants that were detected and quantified with optimized methods for combustible cigarettes, and the other looking for product-specific toxicants using non-targeted analysis. The challenges of data reporting and statistical analysis that allow meaningful comparison across products are also discussed. We end the review by highlighting that even if the technical challenges are overcome, emission comparison may obscure the absolute exposure from novel products if we only focus on relative exposure compared to combustible products.

Keywords: analytical methods; emission comparison; sample generation; tobacco products; toxicants.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

FUNDING This article is a collaborative project by the Center for Coordination of Analytics, Science, Enhancement and Logistics (CASEL) in Tobacco Regulatory Science Toxicity Special Interest Group (SIG), which is supported, in part, by the CASEL cooperative agreement U54DA046060-01 (National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products (FDA CTP). AEH, AA, TLW and MCB report support from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) (grant number U54CA287392). HCE reports support from NIDA (grant number U54DA036151). IR reports support from NCI (grant number U54CA228110). RS reports support from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (grant number R01ES025257). IS reports support from NIDA (grant number U01DA045523). The content and opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not represent the official views of the authors’ institutions, the NIH, or the FDA.