Cigar use has increased since the early 1990s; however, there is limited research on the quantity of carcinogenic metals such as arsenic and cadmium in cigars in general and especially within each of the numerous cigar types. The levels of cadmium and arsenic present in the tobacco filler of 67 little cigars, 21 cigarillos, and 19 large cigars were quantitatively analyzed using "triple-quad" inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Median arsenic concentrations in little cigars, cigarillos (medium-sized cigars), and large cigars were 0.219, 0.224, and 0.193 μg/g, respectively. For cadmium, the median concentration in little cigars was 1.21 μg/g while both cigarillos and large cigars had median cadmium concentrations of 1.32 μg/g. Median arsenic and cadmium concentrations on a per gram basis differed significantly across cigar types (Kruskal-Wallis, both p p p = 0.308), whereas cigarettes had lower median cadmium concentration than cigarillos and large cigars (both p < 0.05). Although in some cases the carcinogenic metal concentrations are similar between cigars and cigarettes in this study, these two tobacco product categories have many different physical characteristics and are used differently, which likely affects mainstream smoke exposure and the related health impacts of the metal content.
Shrestha et al. (Thu,) studied this question.