Epidermal hyperplasia in mouse skin following treatment with alternative drinking water disinfectants

Female SENCAR mice were treated with aqueous solutions of hypochlorous acid (HOCl), sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl), chlorine dioxide (ClO2), and monochloramine (NH2Cl) by whole body exposure (except head) for a 10-min period for 4 days in the first experiment and for 1 day (except NH2Cl) in the second experiment. Animals were sacrificed the day following the last treatment (experiment 1) or on day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, and 12 following treatment (experiment 2), and skin thickness was measured by light microscopy at X400 by use of an eyepiece micrometer. Concentrations of disinfectants were 1, 10, 100, 300, and 1000 mg/L, for experiment 1 and 1000 mg/L for experiment 2. Thickness of the interfollicular epidermis (IFE) for control animals was 15.4 +/- 1.5 micron. After 4 days of treatment at 1000 mg/L, HOCl and ClO2 increased thickness to 39 +/- 7.0 and 40.2 +/- 11.8, and NaOCl increased thickness to 25.2 +/- 6.1 micron. Only HOCl and ClO2 were tested at 300 mg/L, yielding an IFE thickness of 30.0 +/- 13.1 and 16.8 +/- 0.8 micron, respectively. The response to HOCl was found to be dose-related; the minimally effective dose was 100 mg/L. In earlier, preliminary tests to determine optimum treatment schedule, the response to HOCl appeared to be maximal after 4 days of treatment and tended to decrease with further treatment. The time-course study following a single treatment of 1000 mg/L HOCl, however, showed a progression of IFE thickening of from 18.3 +/- 1.4 at 1 day to 30.8 +/- 8.0 at 8 days, decreasing to 19.1 +/- 6.2 micron at 12 days.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)