Curbing Youth E-Cigarette Use Must Remain A Priority

* Abbreviations:\n e-cigarette — : electronic cigarette\n EVALI — : electronic cigarette, or vaping, product use–associated lung injury\n FDA — : US Food and Drug Administration\n\nIn this month’s issue of Pediatrics , Rao et al1 report a retrospective study of 13 adolescents in Dallas, Texas, who were hospitalized and treated for electronic cigarette, or vaping, product use–associated lung injury (EVALI). The first EVALI cases were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on August 1, 2019, although subsequent retrospective analysis of emergency department data has revealed that visits for EVALI had started by June 20192 and peaked in September 2019.3 The group of patients described by Rao et al1 are younger than the national average (15.9 vs 24 years nationally), with a higher percentage of girls (54% vs 34%) and more people of Hispanic ethnicity (46% vs 15%).3 Similar to national reports, the majority of patients (92%) reported vaping tetrahydrocannabinol-containing products, and more than half (62%) reported vaping nicotine-containing products.\n\nConsistent with previous reports of EVALI, clinical severity varied greatly between cases, including one patient experiencing a near-fatal clinical course involving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and long-term mechanical ventilation. Interestingly, 85% of patients had gastrointestinal symptoms (commonly nausea and vomiting), and 4 presented with predominantly gastrointestinal symptoms. The authors report rapid clinical improvement attributed to the … \n\nAddress correspondence to S. Christy Sadreameli, MD, MHS, Eudowood Division of Pediatric Respiratory Sciences, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, 200 N Wolfe St, Third Floor, Baltimore, MD 21287. E-mail: ssadrea1{at}jhmi.edu