Validation of Part-Filter Analysis to Estimate Smokers' Mouth Level Exposure to ‘Tar’ and Nicotine

Part-filter analysis is a method used to assess mouth level exposure (MLE) of cigarette smokers to mainstream smoke constituents. We assessed the robustness of part-filter analysis to compare MLE to nicotine and ‘tar’ between smoker populations and during calibration. Three groups of subjects smoked two batches of the same brand of 1-mg ISO tar yield Hungarian cigarettes three times each. Eighteen calibration curves were produced with three operators using three smoking machines. Within each batch of cigarettes, MLE did not differ significantly between the three smoker groups or after repeated smoking within groups. MLE was marginally higher for cigarettes from Batch 1 than Batch 2. No significant differences were found between the slopes and intercepts of the calibration curves produced using different smoking machines and operators. Part-filter analysis offers a repeatable means of estimating smokers' ‘tar’ and nicotine MLE in large-scale studies in their everyday smoking environments.