Anabasine and Anatabine as Biomarkers for Tobacco Use during Nicotine Replacement Therapy1
- Division of Clinical Pharmacology, San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center, Department of Medicine [P. J., L. Y., N. L. B.], Drug Dependence Research Center [P. J.], and Department of Psychiatry [S. H.], University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94110; Department of Psychiatry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55414 [D. H.]; and Pacific Research Institute, Eugene, Oregon 97403 [H. S.]
Abstract
In this study we determined urine concentration of the tobacco alkaloids anabasine and anatabine, nicotine and its metabolites cotinine, and nornicotine in 99 cigarette smokers and 205 smokeless tobacco users. We also investigated the possibility that anabasine and anatabine can be used as biomarkers for tobacco use during nicotine replacement therapy.
Urine samples and data on self-reported tobacco use were obtained from subjects enrolled in tobacco cessation programs. Urine concentrations of tobacco alkaloids and metabolites were measured and correlated with self-reported tobacco use. Concentrations of anabasine and anatabine were used to validate abstinence in smokeless tobacco users who used nicotine gum as part of the therapy.
Correlations of alkaloid concentration with self-reported tobacco use before treatment ranged from fair to poor. In subjects abstaining from smokeless tobacco but using nicotine gum, anabasine and anatabine levels were below the cut-point of 2 ng/ml despite high concentrations of nicotine and cotinine resulting from nicotine gum use.
Anabasine and anatabine concentrations in urine can be used to validate abstinence or measure the extent of tobacco use in persons undergoing nicotine replacement therapy.
Footnotes
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The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
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↵1 At University of California at San Francisco, financial support by funds provided by the Cigarette and Tobacco Surtax of the State of California through the Tobacco-related Disease Research Program of the University of California (Grant 4RT-0023), and the NIH, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Grants DA02277, DA12393, DA02538, DA09253, and National Cancer Institute Grant CA71378 is gratefully acknowledged. Clinical studies were carried out in the General Clinical Research Center at San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center with support of the Division of Research Resources, NIH (RR-00083). At Pacific Research Institute, the randomized clinical trial assessing the use of nicotine replacement for smokeless tobacco cessation was supported by a grant from the Marion-Merrill Dow Pharmaceutical Company (to H. S.). Raymond G. Boyle was the project director and this study served as his doctoral dissertation from the University of Oregon in 1992. Dr. Edward Lichtenstein was a coinvestigator on the study and Dr. Judith Gordon was a therapist for the study. At the University of Minnesota, financial support by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Grant DA05013, is gratefully acknowledged.
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↵2 To whom requests for reprints should be addressed, at University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco General Hospital, Building 100, Room 235, San Francisco, CA 94110. Phone: (415) 282-9495; Fax: (415) 206-5080; E-mail, peyton@itsa.ucsf.edu.
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↵3 The abbreviations used are: NRT, nicotine replacement therapy.
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- Accepted August 5, 1902.
- Received January 25, 1902.
- Revision received July 16, 1902.
