Cigarette yields and human exposure: A comparison of alternative testing regimens

Objective: There is general agreement that the testing protocol for measuring cigarette smoke constituents-the International Organization for Standardization regimen- is an inappropriate mechanism for evaluating human exposure. Alternative smoking regimens have been introduced in Canada and Massachusetts; however, these regimens have not been evaluated against human smoking behavior and biomeasures of exposure. The objective of this study was to compare measures of smoke volume and nicotine uptake among human smokers against the puffing variables and nicotine yields generated by five different machine smoking regimens: (a) International Organization for Standardization, (b) Massachusetts, (c) Canadian, (d) a Compensatory regimen, and (e) a Human Mimic regimen. Methods: Measures of smoke volume and puffing behavior were recorded for 51 smokers who used a portable smoking topography device for three 1-week trials. Measures of salivary cotinine were taken at the completion of each week. The cigarette brands smoked by participants were then machine-smoked under five testing regimens, including a human mimic condition where brands were machine smoked using the puffing behavior recorded from human smokers. The total volume of smoke collected from each cigarette and the nicotine, tar, and carbon monoxide yields were recorded. Results: None of the four machine smoking regimens adequately reflected Human Mimic Yields of tar, nicotine, and carbon monoxide. In addition, none of the four smoking regimens generated nicotine yields that were associated with actual nicotine uptake in humans. Conclusions: None of the existing smoking regimens adequately represents human smoking behavior nor do they generate yields associated with human measures of nicotine uptake.