2010 Volume 20 Issue 2 Pages 115-123
The health risk due to the exposure to hazardous chemicals in the environment has been traditionally evaluated mainly based on the dose-response relationship determined for human, including the relationship of test animals with appropriate safety factor. However our daily life faces to so many varieties of hazardous chemicals that have not enough toxicity information for health risk evaluation. Here, a new challenge for health risk evaluation framework is proposed to reinforce the traditional framework with the sequential three models: (1) the PBPK model to convert the external exposure dose of chemicals into the internal dose in the target organ/tissue, (2) the dose-response relationship determined at cellular level of the target organ/tissue, and (3) the adverse effect-developing model to convert the change in cellular level into the somatic health risk, e. g., a mathematical cancer model. The expected contribution and utilities of the new framework are also discussed together with the modified framework to use the radiation equivalent dose of chemicals.
The new framework, combined with the traditional, is highly expected as an effective and comprehensive health risk evaluation framework especially for new hazardous chemicals in our living environment.
