Host susceptibility in organic solvent toxicity

The importance of host factors, both genetic and nongenetic, is evident in the actions of foreign chemicals. Host factors may act at both toxicodynamic and toxicokinetic levels. Perhaps the best understood phase of influence is the metabolism of foreign substances, which displays enormous interindividual variation. Genetic, non-genetic and environmental factors are known to be behind this variation, although it is not always in real life easy to tell the relative importance of these different factors. With respect to organic solvent toxicity, there are very little data about the significance of host factors. It is possible, however, that host susceptibility is of critical importance in delayed toxic manifestations of halogenated organic solvents. This view is based mainly on animal experiments.