Results of current intraperitoneal carcinogenicity studies with mineral and vitreous fibres

The study includes some 50 groups of male or female Wistar rats tested in three series. Except for one untreated group and 3 vehicle control groups, the animals were injected intraperitoneally (i.p.) once or repeatedly with dust suspensions and then examined, after lifetime observation up to 30 months, for tumours in the abdominal cavity. 1 granular dust (silicon carbide), 2 asbestos dusts (crocidolite, tremolite) and 11 vitreous fibre dust samples were administered. 5 of the vitreous fibre types were fine fibre fractions from 4 commercial insulation wools and 1 experimental wool, the others were prepared by milling glass microfibres, which have, per se, a small diameter range. The dosage per rat differed over a wide range in accordance with experience from earlier studies. The lowest dose was 0.04 x 10(9) crocidolite fibres in 0.5 mg dust, and the highest amounted to 20 x 10(9) glass fibres in 1000 mg divided into 40 weekly injections. Two mesotheliomas were found in a total of 395 rats treated with saline or granular silicon carbide (250 or 1000 mg). Eleven fibre dusts produced dose-dependent mesotheliomas at rates of up to 97 %, but the calculated fibre number > 5 micrometers in length required for inducing a 25 % tumour risk differed between the fibre samples tested in the relation of 1 to about 1000. UICC-like crocidolite heads the ranking order; the glass fibre B-01, which possesses a low durability in the body, ends it together with a rather thin sample of glass fibre type B-09. The stone fibre MMVF-21 takes a high place in the ranking order, similar to the tremolite sample. The results correspond to those of earlier i.p. tests.