Summary
Twelve volunteer students were experimentally exposed to 0, 27, 81 or 201 ppm trichloroethylene for 4 hours, and suffered from irritation to mucous membrane of eyes and throat at over 27 ppm trichloroethylene. No headache or physiological responses were reported at 27 ppm; headache occurred at levels over 81 ppm. Accumulated urinary excretion of total trichloro-compounds, trichloroacetic acid and trichloroethanol for 6 days after trichloroethylene exposure increased linearly with environmental trichloroethylene concentration in volunteers experimentally exposed to 0–315 ppm trichloroethylene.
In 39 trichloroethylene workers also no changes were observed in the metabolic pattern of trichloroethylene in relation to environmental concentration corresponding to excretion of total trichloro-compounds in urine of 0–180 mg/4 hours namely.
Those data might support a threshold limit value of 50 ppm for trichloroethylene. This conclusion, however, is based only on the appearance of toxic symptoms, but not on critical changes in trichloroethylene metabolism above 50 ppm.
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Presented before the 45th Annual Meeting of Japanese Association of Industrial Health at Tokyo on April 9, 1972, and the 43rd Annual Meeting of Japan Society for Hygiene at Sapporo on May 6, 1973
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Nomiyama, K., Nomiyama, H. Dose-response relationship for trichloroethylene in man. Int. Arch Occup Environ Heath 39, 237–248 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00409369
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00409369