ABSTRACT
Perfluorodecanoic acid (PFDA) is a perfluorinated carboxylic acid and is used in commercial wetting agents and aqueous film-forming foam formulations. Although there is little toxicity information available on PFDA, this section summarizes the toxicological effects of PFDA on mammals. The lack of information prevents derivation of toxicity reference values (TRVs); however, the mean oral toxicity in the rat is 57 mg/kg, and for mice is 111 mg/kg. Reproductive toxicity was assessed in mice, and PFDA was shown to cause a reduction in maternal bodyweight gain at oral doses as low as 6.4 mg/kg-d and in fetal bodyweight at doses as low as 0.1 mg/kg-d. In other studies, PFDA caused hepatocyte necrosis and hepatomegaly in rats exposed to 0.5 mg/kgd and hepatomegaly in mice at exposure levels ≥0.625 mg/kg-d. Immune effects, which included decreases in splenic mass, total spleen cells, Ig positive and NK positive cells, and macrophage function, were also observed. Reductions in concentrations of serum thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3) occurred in response to a single intraperitoneal injection of PFDA into rats, but this was believed to be due to the overt toxicity of PFDA, rather than to endocrine disruption by PFDA.
