Extensive burn injury caused by fundamental electronic cigarette design flaw

Currently, electronic cigarette (EC) devices are widely used as an alternative to conventional smoking. The underlying technical principle is an electric coil-based vaporizer unit, which vaporizes various solutions for inhalation purposes with a rechargeable lithium battery unit as power source. We report a case of extensive burn injury resulting from the thermal explosion of a battery unit within an EC device. Though internal thermal instabilities of lithium ion batteries are a known safety issue, the unique feature here is a pronounced amplification of the extent of burn injury due to an additional scalding burn mechanism that resulted from heating of the liquid reservoir adjacent to the battery. Thus, we demonstrate a relevant design flaw in various EC devices, which in the authors' opinion needs to be addressed both by manufacturers and safety regulations.