Overall performance of Bovine Corneal Opacity and Permeability (BCOP) Laser Light-Based Opacitometer (LLBO) test method with regard to solid and liquid chemicals testing

Abstract

A prospective study of the Bovine Corneal Opacity and Permeability (BCOP) Laser Light-Based Opacitometer (LLBO) test method was conducted to evaluate its usefulness to identify chemicals as inducing serious eye damage (Cat. 1) or chemicals not requiring classification for eye irritation (No Cat.) applying United Nations Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (UN GHS).The aim was to demonstrate the reproducibility of the BCOP LLBO protocol for liquids and solids and define its predictive capacity. Briefly, 145 chemicals were simultaneously tested with BCOP LLBO and OP-KIT (OECD TG 437), one to two times in one laboratory. When used to identify Cat. 1, the BCOP LLBO has a false negative rate (FNR) of 24.1% (N = 56) compared to 34.8% (N = 56) for the BCOP OP-KIT, with a comparable false positive rate (FPR, N = 89) of 18.5% and 20.8%, respectively. When used to identify chemicals not requiring classification (No Cat.) the BCOP LLBO and BCOP OP-KIT had a FNR (N = 104) of 6.2% and 7.2% and a FPR (N = 41) of 45.1% and 42.7%, respectively.The OP-KIT and LLBO devices are interchangeable at no cost to data quality and reliability. The OP-KIT and LLBO devices are interchangeable at no cost to data quality and reliability. The performance of the LLBO is at least as good as the OP-KIT, both methods can be used to identify UN GHS Cat. 1 and UN GHS No Cat. chemicals.