home edit2 whole TSD November 2002 PDF format - OEHHA

PARTICULATE MATTER FROM DIESEL-FUELED ENGINES
CAS No: not available
I. PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL PROPERTIES (From HSDB, 1998)
Molecular weight
Boiling point
Melting point
Vapor pressure
Air concentration conversion
not applicable
not applicable
not applicable
not applicable
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II.
HEALTH ASSESSMENT VALUES
Unit Risk Factor: 1.3 E-4 - 1.5 E-3 (µg/m 3 ) -1 (measured as particulate matter)[Scientific Review
Panel unit risk “reasonable estimate” = 3.0 E-4 (µg/m 3 ) -1 .]
Slope Factor: 1.1 E+0 (mg/kg-day) -1
[Human occupational exposure lung tumor incidence (Garshick et al. (1987a, 1988), estimated
exposure concentrations (Woskie et al., 1988a,b), relative risk model (OEHHA, 1998); human
occupational exposure lung tumor incidence, meta-analysis (OEHHA, 1998).]
III.
CARCINOGENIC EFFECTS
Human Studies
The epidemiological evidence concerning the carcinogenicity of diesel exhaust primarily involves cancers
of the lung and bladder. The review of human diesel exhaust-exposure cancer studies in the document
entitled Health Risk Assessment For Diesel Exhaust written for the Toxic Air Contaminant (TAC)
program (OEHHA, 1998) focuses first on studies of lung cancer (Sections 6.2.1 and 6.2.2) and then
turns to those of bladder cancer (Section 6.2.3). The evidence for causation of lung cancer was then
assessed using criteria for causal inference from epidemiological studies (Section 6.2.4). The evidence
linking diesel exposure and bladder cancer was not as extensive or compelling, and is discussed in the
diesel exhaust TAC document but not in this summary. Because there are no epidemiological studies
involving industrial hygiene measurements concurrent with the exposures of the study populations,
exposure has typically been defined by the surrogate measures of usual occupation or job classification
within an industry.
Review Of Lung Cancer Studies
The question of whether diesel exhaust causes lung cancer has been addressed by both industry-based
cohort and case-control studies as well as population-based studies of lung cancer. In Section 6 of the
diesel exhaust TAC document (OEHHA, 1998), the review of the lung cancer studies was divided into
five parts focusing on studies of: (1) truck drivers, (2) transport and equipment workers, (3) dock
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