Among topography components, the mean puff volume reflects the most elementary unit of smoking reinforcement. Puff volume is an objective measure that may relate to the drive to smoke, especially among youths, in whom the combination of parental, social, and legal smoking prohibitions may cause youths to underreport tobacco consumption on subjective questionnaires. In a recent adolescent trial [14] mean puff volume and CPD inversely predicted successful abstinence at the end of treatment; however, only mean puff volume (not CPD) predicted continued abstinence from smoking at the 3-month follow-up after treatment. Those results argued for the potential superiority of puff volume, as compared to smoking rate, to index the level of tobacco dependence that reflects difficulty in achieving cessation.
