PULMONARY AND PLEURAL RESPONSES IN FISCHER-344 RATS FOLLOWING SHORT-TERM INHALATION OF A SYNTHETIC VITREOUS FIBER .1. QUANTITATION OF LUNG AND PLEURAL FIBER BURDENS
Tr. Gelzleichter et al., PULMONARY AND PLEURAL RESPONSES IN FISCHER-344 RATS FOLLOWING SHORT-TERM INHALATION OF A SYNTHETIC VITREOUS FIBER .1. QUANTITATION OF LUNG AND PLEURAL FIBER BURDENS, Fundamental and applied toxicology, 30(1), 1996, pp. 31-38
The pleura is an important target tissue of fiber-induced disease, alt
hough it is not known whether fibers must be in direct contact with pl
eural cells to exert pathologic effects. In the present study, we dete
rmined the kinetics of fiber movement into pleural tissues of rats fol
lowing inhalation of RCF-1, a ceramic fiber previously shown to induce
neoplasms in the lung and pleura of rats. Male Fischer 344 rats were
exposed by nose-only inhalation to RCF-1 at 89 mg/m(3) (2645 WHO fiber
s/cc), 6 hr/day for 5 consecutive days. On Days 5 and 32, thoracic tis
sues were analyzed to determine pulmonary and pleural fiber burdens. M
ean fiber counts were 22 X 10(6)/lung (25 X 10(3)/pleura) at Day 5 and
18 X 10(6)/lung (16 X 10(3)/pleura) at Day 32. Similar geometric mean
lengths (GML) and diameters (GMD) of pulmonary fiber burdens were obs
erved at both time points. Values were 5 mu m for GML (geometric stand
ard deviation GSD approximate to 2.3) and 0.3 mu m for GMD (GSD approx
imate to 1.9), with correlations between length and diameter (tau) of
0.2-0.3. Size distributions of pleural fiber burdens at both time poin
ts were approximately 1.5 mu m GML (GSD approximate to 2.0) and 0.09 m
u m GMD (GSD approximate to 1.5; tau approximate to 0.2-0.5). Few fibe
rs longer than 5 mu m were observed at either time point. These findin
gs demonstrate that fibers can rapidly translocate to pleural tissues.
However, only short, thin (<5 mu m in length) fibers could be detecte
d over the 32-day time course of the experiment. (C) 1996 Society of T
oxicology