E‐cigarettes: voltage‐ and concentration‐dependent loss in human lung adenocarcinoma viability

E‐cigarettes are used by millions of people despite the fact that the harmful effect of aerosol emitted from these products to the human organism is still not clear. In this paper, toxicity of vapor generated using different solutions and battery output voltage on A549 cells viability is presented. The obtained EC50 values for commercially available propylene glycol/glycerol solution 1:1 e‐liquids based on 3.2 V (0.127%), 4.0 V (0.112%) and 4.8 V (0.038%) were about 1.5–4.5 times higher than in tobacco smoke (0.0086%). Furthermore, it was shown that the increase of battery output voltage decreased A549 cell viability. In addition, commercially available extracts were more cytotoxic than laboratory made extracts. Owing to the expansiveness of e‐cigarettes, it is very important to estimate their impact on public health. Our results not only confirm less cytotoxicity of e‐liquid aerosol than cigarette smoke, but also demonstrate that solutions used in e‐liquids and, for the first time, battery output voltage have a significant impact on cytotoxicity of e‐cigarette vapor. Thus, the results of this study are very important for the current and future legal regulations on e‐cigarettes. No previous study has examined the extent to which e‐cigarette liquid propylene glycol/glycerol concentrations and device power (voltage) interact with each other to influence cytotoxicity of human lung adenocarcinoma cells. Overall, device power had a greater influence on viability of A549 cell line relative to the liquid propylene glycol/glycerol mix, but overall it was much lower than cytotoxicity of tobacco smoke.