About the Authors

Pasquale Caponnetto

Affiliations Centro per la Prevenzione e Cura del Tabagismo, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria “Policlinico-V. Emanuele”, Università di Catania, Catania, Italy, Institute of Internal Medicine, S. Marta Hospital, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria “Policlinico-V. Emanuele”, Università di Catania, Catania, Italy

Davide Campagna

Affiliations Centro per la Prevenzione e Cura del Tabagismo, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria “Policlinico-V. Emanuele”, Università di Catania, Catania, Italy, Institute of Internal Medicine, S. Marta Hospital, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria “Policlinico-V. Emanuele”, Università di Catania, Catania, Italy

Fabio Cibella

Affiliation National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Biomedicine and Molecular Immunology, Palermo, Italy

Jaymin B. Morjaria

Affiliation Division of Cardiovascular and Respiratory Studies, Hull York Medical School, University of Hull, Castle Hill Hospital, Cottingham, United Kingdom

Massimo Caruso

Affiliation Institute of Internal Medicine, S. Marta Hospital, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria “Policlinico-V. Emanuele”, Università di Catania, Catania, Italy

Cristina Russo

Affiliations Centro per la Prevenzione e Cura del Tabagismo, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria “Policlinico-V. Emanuele”, Università di Catania, Catania, Italy, Institute of Internal Medicine, S. Marta Hospital, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria “Policlinico-V. Emanuele”, Università di Catania, Catania, Italy

Riccardo Polosa

polosa@unict.it

Affiliations Centro per la Prevenzione e Cura del Tabagismo, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria “Policlinico-V. Emanuele”, Università di Catania, Catania, Italy, Institute of Internal Medicine, S. Marta Hospital, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria “Policlinico-V. Emanuele”, Università di Catania, Catania, Italy

Competing Interests

RP has received lecture fees and research funding from Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, manufacturers of stop smoking medications. He has served as a consultant for Pfizer and Arbi Group Srl, the distributor of the Categoria™ e-Cigarette. The other authors have no relevant conflict of interest to declare in relation to this work. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: RP. Performed the experiments: RP PC DC. Analyzed the data: FC RP PC CR JM. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MC. Wrote the paper: PC RP CR FC JM. Subjects recruiting: DC.