[Studies on the toxicity of toluene (author's transl)]

Toluene has been used widely as organic industrial solvent separately or together with other solvents. Many workers contact toluene resulting in acute and chronic poisonings. Problems studied include its acute and chronic epidemiology, toxicity on animals and human beings, dose-response relationships, fate in the living body (absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion), maximum allowable concentration and biological monitoring limit value of this chemical. In this paper many recent reports of toxicity and metabolism of toluene are reviewed.