Abstract
This study describes the results regarding the evaluation of retention efficiency by humans of benzene and toluene from cigarette smoke. The evaluated cigarette was a common commercial cigarette with 10.6 mg ‘tar’ [U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ‘tar’ is defined as the weight of total particulate matter minus nicotine and water]. The test was performed on ten subjects. The exhaled smoke was collected using a vacuum assisted technique that avoids strain in exhaling the smoke. The study showed that benzene was retained at levels of 89% to 98%, and toluene was retained at similar levels, between 87% and 99%. The lower limits of retention for both benzene and toluene are unexpectedly low compared to the retention of bi-and tricyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which have retentions from cigarette smoke above 95%. This is probably caused by the fact that monocyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are present practically only in the vapor phase of cigarette smoke and at considerably higher levels than bi- and tri-cyclic aromatic hydrocarbons which are present almost completely in the particulate phase of cigarette smoke.