Teratogenic evaluation of epichlorohydrin in the mouse and rat and glycidol in the mouse.

Pregnant outbred albino rats (CD) and mice (CD-1) were given epichlorohydrin by gastric intubation on d 6-15 of gestation. The rats were killed on d 21 (d 18 for mice) and the offspring checked for gross, visceral, and skeletal malformations. Epichlorohydrin caused a significant reduction in the weight gain of pregnant rats at 80 mg/kg.d as compared with the control group treated only with the vehicle. However, there was no evidence of teratogenicity in the rat fetuses even at a dose level (160 mg/kg.d) that caused the death of some of the treated dams. Epichlorohydrin also did not produce a statistically significant increase in the average percent of malformed mouse fetuses, even at 160 mg/kg.d, a dose that killed 3 of 32 treated dams. The 120 and 160 mg/kg.d levels did cause a significant (p less than 0.05) reduction in the average fetal weight as compared with controls. In addition, the 120 mg/kg.d dose produced the statistically significantly increase in the liver weight of the pregnant mouse. These observations indicate that the 120 and 160 mg/kg.d dose levels were toxic toward the dams and their unborn offspring. In a similar mouse study, glycidol showed no evidence of teratogenicity. There was a significant increase in the number of stunted fetuses at 200 mg/kg.d, but all of these were present in a single litter. Further, the same dose killed 5 of 30 dams.