COMMENTARY ON THE APPLICATION OF (Q)SAR TO THE TOXICOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF EXISTING CHEMICALS

For ethical and financial reasons it is impossible to perform thorough toxicological testing for all of the more than 100,000 substances reg istered in the European Inventory of Existing Substances. It was there fore investigated whether the application of(quantitative) structure-a ctivity relationships (QSAR) with commercially available computer prog rams could predict the toxicological profile and help identify those s ubstances requiring priority toxicological testing. Whereas prediction s with respect to complex endpoints such as carcinogenicity, chronic t oxicity and teratogenicity are still disappointing, more reliable pred ictions should be forthcoming in the immediate future for sensitisatio n, mutagenicity and genotoxicity endpoints. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.