A review of current smoke constituent measurement activities and aspects of yield variability.

An increasing number of initiatives to regulate cigarette smoke constituents beyond 'tar', nicotine and carbon monoxide are being launched. The objective of existing and proposed regulation is presumably either to gain a better understanding of product performance, to be able to discriminate between products, or to impose limits for selected constituents. However, without standardized analytical methods and measurement tolerances a meaningful comparison of data or verification against regulated limits is challenging if not impossible.

A review of the UK methodology used for monitoring cigarette smoke yields, aspects of analytical data variability and their impact on current and future regulatory compliance.

The European Union (EU) requires that tobacco products are regulated by Directive 2001/37/EC through testing and verification of results on the basis of standards developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). In 2007, the European Commission provided guidance to EU Member States by issuing criteria for competent laboratories which includes accreditation to ISO 17025:2005. Another criterion requires regular laboratory participation in collaborative studies that predict the measurement tolerance that must be observed to conclude that test results on any particular product are different.

Simultaneous determination of nicotine and eight nicotine metabolites in urine of smokers using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

A method based on liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MSMS) applying atmospheric pressure chemical ionisation (APCI) in the positive ion mode was developed for the direct determination of nicotine, cotinine, trans-3'-hydroxycotinine, their corresponding glucuronide conjugates as well as cotinine-N-oxide, norcotinine, and nicotine-N'-oxide in the urine of smokers. The assay involves filtration of crude urine, fast liquid chromatography on a reversed-phase column and mass-specific detection using MSMS transitions. Deuterium-labeled nicotine, cotinine, and trans-3'-hydroxycotinine were used as internal standards.