Study of waterpipe smoking topography in Fars province of Iran.

Despite a sharp increase in the use of the waterpipe (WP) has been noted recently in Iran, no information is available for the smoking behavior and topography parameters. The present study is intended to obtain the inhalation and smoking topography parameters for the Iranian WP smokers. The smoking data collected from 122 smoking sessions, including 192 WP smokers in the Iranian Fars province have been used to perform smoking topography assessments. The influence of demographic and smoking parameters on puffing data is obtained. Results have indicated that gender and tobacco type strongly affect puff volume and duration. Women smokers inhale smaller volume of smoke than men and puff duration is significantly increased for regular smokers than occasional smokers. However, the results of the present study have not revealed a major effect of age, residence and setting on the puffing behavior.