U54 Pilot: Cytotoxicity of Filtered Cigars in Comparison to Cigarettes

Filtered cigars are a category of tobacco products that are not apparently used as cigarillos and large cigars. Research suggests that many consumers of filtered cigars treat them like cigarettes; they inhale the tobacco smoke into the lungs, unlike the smoke from cigarillos and large cigars. At least a third of US filtered cigar users don’t even recognize that they are a different category of tobacco products than conventional cigarettes [1]. These factors have led to increases in sales and presumably consumption of filtered cigars since 2009 [2]. The risk for dual use of these filtered cigars, along with cigarettes or other cigar products, would seem to be high. In this project, we will use human bronchial and oral epithelial cell lines to examine the cytotoxicity of reference and commercial filtered cigars in comparison with that of reference and conventional cigarettes. Based on our previous results with reference filtered cigars, we expect that the cytotoxicity will be at least as great for some commercial filtered cigars than for reference and commercial cigarettes. Our results should provide important information to the FDA-CTP towards future regulation of filtered cigar products.