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TSRC, Tob. Sci. Res. Conf., 2019, 73, abstr. 091

Tobacco-specific nitrosamines in the mainstream smoke of commercial little cigars

EDWARDS S.H.(1); HASSINK M.(1); TAYLOR K.M.(1); WATSON C.(2); KUKLENYIK P.(2); WANG R.(2); CHEN P.(2); VALENTIN-BLASINI L.(2); KIMBRELL B.(2)
(1) US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Silver Spring, MD, USA; (2) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA

Cigars are among the broad variety of deemed tobacco products that have been less extensively studied and characterized than cigarettes. Small sheet-wrapped cigars, often called little cigars, are a subcategory of cigars that are similar to conventional cigarettes but have been previously determined to have higher tobacco-specific nitrosamine (TSNA) levels in the whole product by comparison. To understand the smoke delivery of TSNAs by little cigars, the mainstream smoke of 60 commercial little cigar products was measured for 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK) and N'-nitrosonornicotine (NNN) according to the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) and Canadian Intense (CI) smoking regimens using a validated LC/MS/MS method. NNK and NNN by ISO smoking regimen ranged from 89 – 879 ng/cigar and 201 -1540 ng/cigar, respectively; by the CI regimen, NNK and NNN ranged from 138 – 1571 ng/cigar and 445 – 2780 ng/cigar, respectively. The average transfer ratio for NNK and NNN from tobacco filler to mainstream smoke is 24% and 36% by the ISO and CI smoking regimens, respectively. By the ISO smoking regimen, mainstream smoke NNK and NNN yields exhibit a moderate correlation (R2 = 0.60 – 0.68; p< 0.0001) with tobacco filler NNK and NNN. The mainstream smoke NNK and NNN yields of little cigars were also determined to be 3- to 5-fold higher compared to previously tested commercial cigarettes. The mainstream smoke NNK and NNN yields have wide variation among commercial little cigar products and suggest that, despite their similarities to cigarettes, little cigars deliver more of these carcinogenic TSNAs.