Smoking Behavior and Exposure: Results of a Menthol Cigarette Cross-over Study

Objective: Our objective was to improve understanding of the differences in use behavior and exposure when smoking menthol and non-menthol cigarettes using a 2-part cross-over design. Methods: Adult daily smokers were assigned randomly to alternate between 2 weeks of exclusively smoking a menthol test cigarette or a non-menthol test cigarette. Urine and saliva were collected for biomarker measurements; carbon monoxide (CO) was measured, and participants smoked test cigarettes through a CreSS (R) smoking topography device during 3 clinic visits. Participants turned in their cigarette butts from the test periods for determination of mouth level nicotine and completed subjective questionnaires related to the test cigarettes. Results: Regardless of cigarette preference, participants had higher salivary cotinine when smoking the non-menthol test cigarette, but there were no significant differences detected in urine 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1- butanol between the 2 test cigarettes. Mouth level nicotine, puff volume, and puff duration were significantly higher when smoking the menthol brand. Both menthol and non-menthol smokers reported significantly lower enjoyment and satisfaction scores for test cigarettes compared with their brand of choice. Conclusions: Our results suggest that mentholation has an effect on measures of smoking behavior and that mouth level nicotine is a useful indicator of between-brand smoke exposure.