Equivalence of in vitro and in vivo methods for assessing the effectiveness of anti-particulate matter pollution products.

BACKGROUND: The in vivo evaluation of antipollution products has attracted attention due to increasing global pollution levels; however, it is expensive, time-consuming, and dangerous because of the harmful nature of fine dust. Therefore, this paper proposes an alternative in vitro assessment method and compares the fine dust blocking effectiveness of both methods for different antipollution products. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Initially, tests were conducted by spraying fine dust on human forearms and artificial leather without pretreatment for in vivo and in vitro samples, respectively. However, the same results were not obtained for both the methods. Therefore, we evaluated different leather conditions (color, drying time, and temperature) to determine the optimal artificial material for testing antipollution products before adopting beige artificial leather dried at 32°C for 30 minutes for further tests. RESULTS: The initial tests exhibited a significant difference (P < .05) between the two methods; however, the revised tests exhibited no significant difference (P > .05) between the two methods for either beige leather dried at room temperature (20°C-25°C) for 60 minutes or at 32°C for 30-60 minutes or white leather dried at 32°C for 60 min. Therefore, the in vitro method was deemed equivalent to the in vivo method. The effectiveness of fine dust blocking (P < .05) and the equivalence between the evaluation methods (P > .05) were confirmed for each antipollution product. CONCLUSION: The proposed method is economical, efficient, and safe, making it a novel and valid alternative for the evaluation of antipollution products.