Skip to main content

Table 2 Alveolar surface areas in rats and humans (the toxicological study [17] applied in model A used Fischer rats F344)

From: Translational toxicology in setting occupational exposure limits for dusts and hazard classification – a critical evaluation of a recent approach to translate dust overload findings from rats to humans

 

Species/strain

N

Method and comments

Lung function status*

Alveolar surface area: absolute values

Alveolar surface area: ratio human/rat

Yeh [23]

Rat (Long Evans, 330 g)

1

silicone rubber cast (does not entail the alveolar region)

TLC

0.5725 m2 (mentioned as calculated value on p. 487, no value given in Table Two)

-

-

Yeh & Schum [24]

Human (60 years, ♂)

1

silicone rubber cast (does not entail the alveolar region)

TLC

No value given (neither in the text nor in Table Two)

-

-

US EPA [21]Brown et al. [5]

Rat (authors reference Yeh et al. [23], scaled to FRC) human (authors reference Yeh and Schum [24], scaled to FRC)

1

silicone rubber cast (does not entail the alveolar region) derivation of values in Brown et al. [5] cannot be reproduced from Yeh et al. [23] and Yeh and Schum [24] because of missing data and an unknown algorithm

FRC

0.2972 m2

193 (57.22/ 0.2972)

 

1

FRC

57.22 m2

Gehr et al. [27]

Human (19 – 40 J)

8

in situ instillation with glutaraldehyde solution, evaluation by electron microscopy (evaluation according to the reference method, Hsia et al. [26])

TLC

143 m2 ± 12

 

349 (143 acc. to Gehr/0.41 acc. to Stone) (identical methods and F344 rats)

Stone et al. [28]

Rat (F344, 290 g)

4

in situ instillation with glutaraldehyde solution, evaluation by electron microscopy (evaluation according to the reference method, Hsia et al. [26])

TLC

0,41 m2 ± 0,04

249 (102,2/ 0,4)

0.4 m2 ± 0,03

Rat (SD, 363 g)

8

Human (nonsmoker)

4 (3♀, 1♂)

surgically resected lung lobes (no in situ instillation, underestimation probable because of post-mortal atalectasis)

 

102.2 m2 ± 20,5

  1. *TLC: total lung capacity, FRC: functional residual capacity.