Conclusion
Experimental pathology and toxicology has frequently advanced because of the addition of newdiagnostic tools. During the last decade, bronchoalveolar lavage has emerged as a very usefultool in the assessment of lung injury. It is applicable to both animal models exposed toinhaled particles and gases in a laboratory and to humans encountering exposures to the sameagents in occupational and urban environments. Information can be gathered from BALrelating to the extent and type of lung injury and the mechanisms involved. Needed are moreextensive comparisons of injury as judged by other approaches with the results of BAL. Forexample, short-term bioassay results can be integrated with industrial hygiene andepidemiology results as was done in a recent study of talc and granite dusts (Beck, 1987). It isalso likely that other constituents of BAL can be quantified which will help make bioassaysutilizing BAL more specific and sensitive. The use of BAL in short-term animal assays can bean important source of information regarding the toxicity of new and poorly characterizedinhaled particles.The cells contained in BAL are worthy of further study since macrophages and otherphagocytic cells occupy a central role in the pathogenesis of lung injury. These cells preventinfection, are involved in particle clearance, but also contribute to lung disease when activatedand/or damaged. Continuing development of new methods will inevitably lead to additionalinsights into how macrophages are involved in environmental lung injury.
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Brain, J.D. Short-term in vitro and in vivo bioassays: their role in estimating the toxic potential of inhaled complex mixtures for humans. Cell Biol Toxicol 8, 123–132 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00130519
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00130519