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ASSESSING THE IMPORTANCE OF THE BEHAVIORAL EFFECT OF ACUTE EXPOSURE TO TOLUENE IN HUMANS.
Citation:
Benignus, V A., W K. Boyes, AND P J. Bushnell. ASSESSING THE IMPORTANCE OF THE BEHAVIORAL EFFECT OF ACUTE EXPOSURE TO TOLUENE IN HUMANS. Presented at Society of Toxicology, New Orleans, LA, March 06 - 10, 2005.
Description:
There is increasing interest in being able to evaluate potential benefit-cost relationships of controlling exposure to toxic substances. Behavioral effects of acute toluene exposure could be subjected to benefit-cost analysis if it's effects were quantitatively compared to those of ethanol ingestion, which have already been so analyzed. Behavioral effects of inhaled toluene and ingested ethanol were quantified by meta-analysis of studies from the peer-reviewed literature describing their effects on choice reaction time (reaction time in a test requiring a subject to choose among two or more alternatives before responding). The internal doses of these compounds were estimated by a general physiological and toxicokinetic simulation from exposure parameters provided in the reports. The reported effects were converted to a common metric (proportion of baseline) and related to the estimated internal doses of toluene and ethanol, from which dose-effect equations were fitted. Next, a dose-equivalence equation was derived to express, within confidence limits, the dose of toluene as an equivalent dose of ethanol on the basis of equal magnitude of effect. Finally, a nomogram was constructed to relate the inhaled concentration of toluene to equivalent effects of ethanol internal doses. The resulting function can be used to estimate the monetary value of behavioral deficits caused by a range of exposures to toluene using existing information about monetary consequences of ethanol ingestion. (This abstract does not reflect EPA policy.)