IN THIS ISSUE

Extract

Carcinogen Exposure and Reduced Carcinogen Tobacco

Although tobacco products with reportedly reduced carcinogen content are being marketed, carcinogen uptake in people who use these products compared with that in people using medicinal nicotine has not been assessed systematically. In a randomized study, Hatsukami et al. (p. 844) compared carcinogen uptake in users of smokeless tobacco who switched to Swedish snus or cigarette smokers who switched to OMNI cigarettes with that of men who quit and used the nicotine patch. The authors found that metabolite levels of a tobacco-specific carcinogen were much lower in men who switched to snus or to the nicotine patch than they were before the switch and in men who switched to OMNI cigarettes or to the nicotine patch. Cigarette smokers who switched to the patch also had reduced levels of a biomarker of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon uptake. The authors conclude that switching to reduced-carcinogen tobacco products or medicinal nicotine can decrease levels of tobacco-associated carcinogens, with statistically significantly greater reductions being observed with medicinal nicotine.