Biostatistical issues in the design and analysis of animal carcinogenicity experiments

Two-year animal carcinogenicity experiments are used to evaluate the potential carcinogenicity from exposure to chemicals. The choice of exposure levels, the allocation of animals to doses, the length of exposure, and the choice of interim sacrifice times all affect the power of statistical tests for carcinogenic effects and the variance of interpolated estimates of carcinogenic risk. In this paper, one aspect of this problems is considered: the ability of tumor incidence data to provide information on carcinogenic mechanism and the optimal choice of design parameters with which to achieve this purpose. The direct application of biochemical data to the estimation of carcinogenic risk is also discussed in detail.