Jk. Mcgee et al., A VERSATILE GAS UPTAKE INHALATION SYSTEM USED IN PHARMACOKINETIC AND METABOLIC STUDIES OF VOLATILE ORGANIC-COMPOUNDS, Toxicology methods, 5(4), 1995, pp. 199-212
This paper describes an automated gas uptake system for pharmacokineti
c research with volatile organic compounds, designed to operate within
the parameters maintained during conventional whole-body inhalation e
xposures according to the Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) guidelines,
Benefits are twofold: (1) to ensure that animals are tested under the
same widely accepted guidelines, and (2) to minimize the number of ani
mals required to perform a study, by allowing direct comparison of res
ults from gas uptake studies with results from other inhalation toxico
logy studies and use of animals from gas uptake experiments for postex
posure toxicological testing, Other features implemented in the chambe
r design improve the ease of use and productivity of the system, These
include provisions to adapt the apparatus for use in different pharma
cokinetic experimental protocols, automation of data acquisition and o
xygen control during exposures, and automated calculation of exposure
summary statistics and graphics using a spreadsheet program, The autom
ation system reduces the labor hours required to perform a gas uptake
experiment by approximately one-half.