ABSTRACT
The combustion of a cigarette creates an aerosol containing numerous chemical compounds (Stedman, 1968). Several specic classes of hazardous compounds pose a great concern among the thousands of reported chemicals generated during smoking (Hoffmann et al., 1997; Matsushima et al., 1979; Rustemeier et al., 2002). According to their carcinogenicity on humans, individual chemicals and chemical mixtures have been classied as known, probable, and possibly carcinogenic by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). So far, 69 smoke constituents have been classied as carcinogens by the IARC, and cigarette smoke as a mixture has been classied as a human carcinogen (Pánková, 1986); many of the individual volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present in whole smoke, such as benzene, ethylbenzene, and styrene, are known or potential human carcinogens. Although VOCs comprise only a small fraction (by weight) of mainstream cigarette smoke, smoking is a primary exposure source for many toxic volatile compounds, and this fraction has been proposed as the most hazardous fraction of mainstream smoke (Fowles and Dybing, 2003).
