Ann. occup. Hyg., Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 168-172, 2003
© 2003 British Occupational Hygiene Society
Published by Oxford University Press
Letters to the Editor |
Reply
Occupational Medicine Division, Department of Clinical Medicine and Immunological Sciences, University of Siena, Italy
Received 28 August 2002; in final form 7 October 2002
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The letter of Professors Kissel and Bunge ‘Comment on Sartorelli et al. (1998): invalid calculation of permeability coefficients’ and the reply of Doctors Semple, Cherrie, Brouwer and Dick allow me to discuss some key issues of dermal exposure assessment.
I premise that finite dose experiments are not the golden standard to calculate Kp. Nevertheless it is commonly considered reasonable to calculate Kp when steady-state (or pseudo steady-state) conditions are observed during a finite dose experiment. This can be considered a good estimate of the true Kp that can only be obtained in infinite dose experiments. Steady-state is considered achieved when the linear regression between cumulative dose in the receptor and time shows a very good correlation. These conditions were reached in our experiments as recognized by Professors Kissel and Bunge. Finite dose experiments are frequently adopted in occupational and environmental medicine because they are more realistic.
The first criticism