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Fact Sheet
Carcinogenic Potency Database (CPDB)

The Carcinogenic Potency Databas (CPDB) provides historical information from the years 1980 - 2011. It is no longer updated

CPDB reports analyses of animal cancer tests on 1547 chemicals. Results for each chemical are searchable on the Web site of the National Library of Medicine (NLM®) Toxicology Data Network (TOXNET®). CPDB includes 6540 chronic, long-term animal cancer tests, both positive and negative for carcinogenicity, from the general published literature as well as the National Cancer Institute and the National Toxicology Program (NTP). Such tests are used in support of cancer risk assessments for humans. CPDB was developed by the Carcinogenic Potency Project at the University of California, Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Information that is important in the interpretation of bioassays is reported in CPDB for each experiment: species, strain, and sex of test animal; details of experimental protocol such as route of administration, duration of dosing, average daily dose-rate in mg/kg body weight/day, and duration of experiment; target organ, tumor type, and tumor incidence; carcinogenic potency and its statistical significance; shape of the dose-response curve, author's opinion as to carcinogenicity, and citation to the published paper. TD50, a numerical description of carcinogenic potency, is the daily dose-rate in mg/kg/body weight/day for life to induce tumors in half of test animals that would have remained tumor-free at zero dose. TD50 provides a standardized quantitative measure that can be used for comparisons and analyses of many issues in carcinogenesis.

CPDB is accessible, free of charge, via the National Library of Medicine's TOXNET at: https://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov

Users can search for results on each chemical from the TOXNET Web site by chemical name or fragment, or Chemical Abstracts Service Registry Number(RN). Results include a summary for each sex-species tested, including carcinogenicity, target organs, and carcinogenic potency values. Detailed results from each experiment on that particular chemical are given in a plot format suitable for screen viewing. Chemical structure, InChI and SMILES codes are reported.

CPDB is also available in several formats that combine results for all chemicals, including summary tables and formats that can be read into statistical databases. Links to these are available via TOXNET in the support page CPDB Overview.

Further Information

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