E-Cigarettes, Vaping Devices, and Acute Lung Injury

"E-cigarettes" are a class of consumer devices designed to deliver drugs, primarily nicotine or marijuana oils, to the lung by vaporization. Regulation of the devices in the United States is relatively minimal, and research on both epidemiology and potential toxicity has focused on nicotine devices. In 2019, an outbreak of an acute respiratory illness in the United States was traced back to the contamination of e-cigarette fluids with vitamin E acetate, which had been used to disguise the dilution of marijuana oils. The outbreak, termed "e-cigarette or vaping associated lung injury" by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, was characterized by pulmonary infiltrates and hypoxia, which usually required hospitalization and, often, admission to ICUs. The syndrome sickened >2,600 people, mostly young men, and killed >50 people before it began to abate 6 months later. No current regulations exist to prevent a similar event with the same or different chemical contaminants. Absent such regulation, respiratory practitioners should be prepared to evaluate, identify, and treat future cases of acute lung toxicity from e-cigarettes.