The UK Smoke Constituents Testing Study. Summary of Results and Comparison with Other Studies

At the request of the UK Department of Health, samples of 25 commercial UK cigarette brands were provided to LGC Ltd a for smoke analysis. The brands reflected a high market share (58% in July 2001) and included a wide range of blend and product styles manufactured and imported into the UK.= 0.76), suggesting a minor role of other design features on constituents yield variability. This was confirmed by the application of multiple regression analysis to the data. A subset of five brands, retested at another laboratory, gave between-laboratory differences in mean constituent yields of as much as 2.5-fold. Consideration of these results, other likely sources of analytical variation in this study and a review of other studies, clearly indicates that any tolerance values to be associated with individual smoke constituent measurements will be greater than those for NFDPM, and in some cases, much greater. Consistent with the reported results from other large studies it is concluded that, under ISO smoking conditions, smoke constituent yields are largely predictable, if NFDPM and CO yields are known, for a standard cigarette. Given these observations and the likely limitations of analytical determination, the need for routine measurement of smoke constituent yields, other than NFDPM, nicotine or CO, on standard cigarettes, is questionable.