ABSTRACT
The publication in the early 1950s of the results of several retrospective studies on association between cigarette smoking and respiratory tract cancer, particularly lung cancer, and the study on induction of skin carcinoma in a susceptible strain of mice painted with massive doses of cigarette tar for the better part of their life span [Wynder et al. (4306a)] triggered intensive interest in the composition of cigarette mainstream smoke (MSS). Because the cigarette smoke condensate (CSC), or total particulate matter (TPM), the phase of the smoke aerosol reported to be the mouse-skin tumorigen, embodied the particulate phase of the cigarette smoke aerosol, considerable effort was devoted to defining its composition with emphasis on the presence in it of tumorigenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), particularly benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P). This effort was conducted by research groups both within and outside of the tobacco industry.
