With a letter to the editor of the prestigious The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, CoEHAR researchers intervene to clarify the results of a pilot study that used a radiographic analysis system to evaluate the degree of lung inflammation in vapers compared to smokers and non-smokers. According to the Catania research team, led by prof. Riccardo Polosa, image analysis does not prove any causal link between the use of e-cigarettes and related lung damage.
A study recently published by a team of American researchers compared the radiological examinations of the lungs of 5 vapers, 5 cigarette smokers and 5 subjects who had never used either instrument. Emerging data suggested that e-cigarette use appears to be related to a higher degree of lung inflammation than cigarette smokers. Implying even greater damage to health. According to prof. Polosa: “The study has no causal link between the data found and the hypothesis that there are health complications for vapers”.
Indeed, as the scientist from Catania explains: “The poor reproducibility of the tests and the small sample of the study does not allow a precise and scientific answer to be given on the pulmonary inflammation caused by vaping precisely because it does not take into consideration fundamental factors, such as the previous smoking habit of the vapers”. If harm caused by cigarette smoking cannot be dissociated from harm caused by e-cigarettes, only long-term monitoring of exclusive vapers who have never smoked in their life would have been a more suitable study design to verify the harm caused by electronic cigarettes.
As commented by Prof. Stefano Palmucci, professor of diagnostic imaging and radiotherapy at the University of Catania: “It would be desirable to have a long-term study with pure vaping individuals, i.e. not previously exposed to conventional cigarettes, in order to verify the damage from EC. Furthermore, a larger number of subjects should be recruited, in order to be able to obtain more consistent data”.
The letter published today brings the now obvious need to apply and share scientific research standards and greater control of publication processes to media attention: “We are too often confronted with scientific results deduced from poor quality studies that are published in prestigious journals without proper scrutiny. Research that only serves to feed an unfounded anti-vaping rhetoric based on preconceptions try to dissuade smokers from making choices that are less harmful to their health” – concludes the prof. Polosa.