What Does Specific Target Organ Toxicity (STOT) Mean?
Specific target organ toxicity (STOT) refers to the adverse, non-lethal health effects of a toxic substance that affect an organ and its functions.
Specific target organ toxicity (STOT) refers to the adverse, non-lethal health effects of a toxic substance that affect an organ and its functions.
The Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS) categorizes the specific target organ toxicity of various substances according to the type of exposure, the target organ, and the severity of the effects.
Since humans cannot be subjected to significant harm in laboratory settings and data on exposure to toxic substances is limited, many of the STOT classifications are based on animal studies.
STOT- single exposure (STOT-SE) refers to the adverse, non-lethal, organ-specific health effects of a toxic substance that manifest following a single exposure.
Toxins with STOT-SE effects include:
These toxins fall under three hazard categories:
STOT - repeated exposure (STOT-RE) refers to the adverse, non-lethal, organ-specific health effects of a toxic substance that only manifest after multiple exposures.
The GHS divides STOT-RE into two categories:
There are two hazard categories in this classification:
In order to quickly convey the level of risk associated with substances with STOT effects, the GHS uses pictograms to indicate the hazard category.
For the more hazardous STOT Category 1 and Category 2, the pictogram for health hazards is used:
For the more benign STOT Category 3, the exclamation mark pictogram is used: