Abstract
Recently, toxicants such as formaldehyde and acrolein were detected in electronic cigarette (EC) aerosols. It is imperative to conduct research and provide sufficient quantitative evidence to address the associated potential health risks. However, it is still a lack of informative data, i.e., high-resolution local dosimetry of inhaled aerosols in lung airways and other systemic regions, due to the limited imaging resolutions, restricted operational flexibilities, and invasive nature of experimental and clinical studies. In this study, an experimentally validated multiscale numerical model, i.e., Computational Fluid-Particle Dynamics (CFPD) model combined with a Physiologically Based Toxicokinetic (PBTK) model is developed to predict the systemic translocation of nicotine and acrolein in the human body after the deposition in the respiratory system. In-silico parametric analysis is performed for puff topography influence on the deposition and translocation of nicotine and acrolein in human respiratory systems and the systemic region. Results indicate that the puff volume and holding time can contribute to the variations of the nicotine and acrolein plasma concentration due to enhanced aerosol deposition in the lung. The change in the holding time has resulted in significant difference in the chemical translocation which was neglected in a large group of experimental studies. The capability of simulating multiple puffs of the new CFPD-PBTK model paves the way to a valuable computational simulation tool for assessing the chronic health effects of inhaled EC toxicants.
Highlights
Electronic cigarettes (ECs), perceived as the safer alternatives to conventional cigarettes, are manufactured in a wide variety of device designs with widely varying nicotine concentrations, added flavors, and glycerol (VG), as well as propylene glycol (PG) to imitate smoke via vaporization instead of combustion (Allen et al 2016)
The third recirculation is formed at the back of the trachea due to the pressure variations induced by the glottis
It should be noted that the backflow will increase the residence time of particles entering the recirculating regions, while reducing the local deposition avoid direct impaction of the particles carried by the mainstream flow (Figure 3)
Summary
Electronic cigarettes (ECs), perceived as the safer alternatives to conventional cigarettes, are manufactured in a wide variety of device designs with widely varying nicotine concentrations, added flavors, and glycerol (VG), as well as propylene glycol (PG) to imitate smoke via vaporization instead of combustion (Allen et al 2016). Studies claimed that some e-cigarette products have immediate adverse physiological effects after short-term use, e.g., an increase in impedance, peripheral airway flow resistance, and oxidative stress among healthy smokers who used an e-cigarette for 5 min (Alfi and Talbot 2013), while the long-term health effects are still unknown and worthy of further investigations. Toxicants such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acrolein, diacetyl, benzaldehyde, and vanillin were detected in e-cigarette aerosols (Goniewicz, Hajek, & McRobbie 2014; Allen et al 2016; Flora et al 2017).
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