Acute toxicity and cancer risk assessment values for tert-butyl acetate

tert-Butyl acetate (TBAc) is an industrial chemical with potential uses as a degreaser and in architectural coatings. Limited chronic toxicity data exist for TBAc. However, acute inhalation exposure data are available for TBAc. Additionally, TBAc has been demonstrated to be substantially metabolized to tert-butanol (TBA) in rats, and a positive TBA genotoxicity study suggests that TBA may cause oxidative DNA damage. TBA has been shown to induce tumors in both rats and mice, and the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has calculated an oral cancer potency factor (CSF) for TBA of 3 × 10−3 (mg/kg-day)−1. Therefore, TBAc should be considered to pose a potential cancer risk to humans because of the metabolic conversion to TBA. An acute 1-h reference exposure level of 1 mg/m3 can be calculated from the extrapolated no observed adverse effect level of 50 mg/m3. A CSF of 0.002 (mg/kg-day)−1 can be derived for TBAc, assuming 100% metabolism of TBAc to TBA. An inhalation unit risk value for TBAc of 4 × 10−7 (μg/m3)−1 can then be derived from the CSF value for TBAc by assuming a human breathing rate of 20 m3/day, 70% fractional absorption, and an average human body weight of 70 kg.