Changes in Lung Function Parameters, Bronchial Reactivity, State of Health and Smoking Behaviour Associated With Changing From Conventional Smoking to Electronic Cigarettes

STUDY BACKGROUND / RATIONALE / PURPOSE:

There is still little known about the health effects by vaping electronic cigarettes. Some former studies investigated the short term effects of vaping regarding lung function, respiratory resistance and FeNO (fractional exhaled nitric oxide). Flouris et al., 2013 did not found significant short term effects on conventional lung function parameters. Vardavas et al., 2012 also found no short term effects on conventional lung function parameters, but an increase of respiratory resistance and a decrease of FeNO. In contrast, Schober et al., 2014 observed an increase of FeNO after vaping electronic cigarettes.

Experimental studies have shown, that electronic cigarettes induce an inflammatory process in epithelial cells (Lerner et al., 2015; Wu, Jiang, Minor, and Chu, 2014). Lim and Kim, 2014 investigated the effects of e-liquids on the airway reactivity and inflammation on allergic sensitized mice. Reactivity and inflammation got worse.

Long term data is still missing. For this purpose we want to investigate lung function, airway reactivity, health status and smoking/vaping behaviour in smokers at the time they intend to start vaping and after 3 months.