[A physiologically based pharmacokinetic model to describe the transfer of organic solvents in the human body. Simulation of kinetic behavior of trichloroethylene using a spreadsheet program]

Abstract

A physiologically based pharmacokinetic model was developed to describe the transfer of organic solvent vapors in the human body. The model was composed of seven tissue compartments, i.e., lungs, vessel-rich tissues, vessel-poor tissues, muscles, fat tissues, gastrointestinal tissues, and liver, each being interconnected by the blood flow system. Transfer of organic solvents was expressed in the form of simultaneous differential equations, which were then solved numerically on a personal computer using a simple spreadsheet program. The simulation of pharmacokinetic behavior of trichloroethylene with this model was found to be in general agreement with the experimental data. The usefulness of a physiological simulation model to elucidate some toxicokinetic aspects of human exposure to organic solvent vapors is discussed.