Abstract

Evaluating the potential occupational health risk of engineered nanomaterials is an ongoing need. The objective of this meta-analysis, which consisted of 36 studies containing 86 materials, was to assess the availability of published in vivo rodent pulmonary toxicity data for a variety of nanoscale and microscale materials and to derive potency estimates via benchmark dose modeling. Additionally, the potency estimates based on particle mass lung dose associated with acute pulmonary inflammation were used to group materials based on toxicity. The commonalities among the physicochemical properties of the materials in each group were also explored. This exploration found that a material’s potency tended to be associated primarily with the material class based on chemical composition and form (e.g. carbon nanotubes, TiO₂, ZnO) rather than with particular physicochemical properties. Limitations in the data available precluded a more extensive analysis of these associations. Issues such as data reporting and appropriate experimental design for use in quantitative risk assessment are the main reasons publications were excluded from these analyses and are discussed.

摘要

评估工程纳米材料的潜在职业健康风险是一项持续的需求。这项荟萃分析由 36 项研究组成，包含 86 种材料，其目的是评估已发表的体内各种纳米级和微米级材料的啮齿动物肺毒性数据，并通过基准剂量模型得出效力估计值。此外，基于与急性肺部炎症相关的颗粒质量肺剂量的效力估计用于根据毒性对材料进行分组。还探讨了各组材料理化性质之间的共性。这一探索发现，材料的效能往往主要与基于化学成分和形式的材料类别（例如碳纳米管、TiO ₂, ZnO) 而不是具有特定的物理化学性质。可用数据的局限性妨碍了对这些关联进行更广泛的分析。用于定量风险评估的数据报告和适当的实验设计等问题是出版物被排除在这些分析之外并进行讨论的主要原因。