The growing popularity of e-vapour products (EVP) carries with it an increasing interest in the examination of vaping behaviour.

As part of a product stewardship programme to evaluate and assess e-vapour products prior to placing them on the market, a randomised, parallel group, multi-centre study was conducted^[1].

Puffing topography was evaluated during the confinement period of this clinical study. Two flavour variants were provided and 40 subjects were randomised to either the EVP arm or conventional cigarette (CC) arm at a ratio of 3:1 respectively.

This method uses a non-invasive measurement device (SODIM, SPA/M) which can be adapted to the mouth end of a CC and EVP. This instrument is portable and was given to volunteers at day 0, day 2 and day 5 of the study for a four hour period.

A total of 5667 puffs were processed. Puffing topography parameters such as puff volume, inter puff interval, puff duration, and peak flow were averaged for each subject per time point and evaluated using descriptive statistics.

In addition to puffing topography and comparison between EVP and CC, we will describe how the puff device was initially validated; including accuracy, precision and robustness of the SPA/M device against smoking machine (sin, triangle or square wave).

We will also address the following questions: Do we need to pay attention to potential bias coming from the adaptor to properly record the flow rate? How to properly set up the training phase? Does the puff have a specific shape?

[1] Tan Walele, ST20, CORESTA SSPT2015