Talsma D M, Leach C L, Hatoum N S, Gibbons R D, Roger J C, Garvin P J
Environmental Affairs and Safety Department, Amoco Corporation, Chicago, Illinois 60601.
Fundam Appl Toxicol. 1988 Jan;10(1):146-53. doi: 10.1016/0272-0590(88)90259-x.
The Draize eye irritancy test in rabbits has been the focus of recent efforts to reduce the use of live animals in toxicity testing. A suitable alternative is not yet available; therefore, we studied the adequacy of reducing the number of rabbits used per test. Data generated from 6-rabbit eye irritation tests of 155 various materials were used to determine the ability of irritation scores from all possible combinations of 5-, 4-, 3-, or 2-rabbit subsets to predict the Draize score derived from six rabbits. There are 930, 2325, 3100, and 2325 possible combinations of 155 studies for the 5-, 4-, 3-, and 2-rabbit subsets, respectively. We classify materials using a four-level adjectival rating system based on (among other factors) the Draize score. Comparisons indicated that 5-, 4-, 3-, and 2-rabbit scores were in 98, 96, 94, and 91% agreement, respectively, with the classification assigned on the basis of the 6-rabbit score. The correlation coefficients for randomly selected subsets of 5-, 4-, 3-, and 2-rabbit scores versus the Draize score for six rabbits were 0.998, 0.996, 0.992, and 0.984, respectively. This study confirms the findings of an earlier report by De Sousa et al. (1984), and indicates that a high level of accuracy can be obtained with reduced numbers of rabbits per test.
家兔的德莱兹眼刺激试验一直是近期减少活体动物用于毒性试验的努力焦点。目前尚未有合适的替代方法；因此，我们研究了减少每次试验所用家兔数量是否可行。从对155种不同材料进行的6只家兔眼刺激试验中生成的数据，用于确定5只、4只、3只或2只家兔子集的所有可能组合的刺激评分预测6只家兔得出的德莱兹评分的能力。对于5只、4只、3只和2只家兔子集，155项研究分别有930种、2325种、3100种和2325种可能的组合。我们基于（除其他因素外）德莱兹评分，使用四级形容词评级系统对材料进行分类。比较表明，5只、4只、3只和2只家兔的评分与基于6只家兔评分所确定的分类的一致性分别为98%、96%、94%和91%。随机选择的5只、4只、3只和2只家兔评分子集与6只家兔的德莱兹评分的相关系数分别为0.998、0.996、0.992和0.984。本研究证实了德索萨等人（1984年）早期报告的结果，并表明每次试验减少家兔数量仍可获得较高的准确性。
