Chloroform

Overview

In January 2018, EPA released the Systematic Review Protocol for the Chloroform IRIS Assessment (Inhalation). As part of developing a draft IRIS assessment, EPA presents a methods document, referred to as the protocol, for conducting a chemical-specific systematic review of the available scientific literature. Protocols include strategies for literature searches, criteria for study inclusion or exclusion, considerations for evaluating study methods, information management for extracting data, approaches for synthesis within and across lines of evidence, and methods for derivation of toxicity values.

Background

Chloroform (trichloromethane) is a colorless, volatile liquid with a distinct odor. Chloroform is nonflammable. It is slightly soluble in water and is readily miscible with most organic solvents. Because chloroform is relatively volatile, it tends to escape from contaminated environmental media (e.g., water or soil) into air, and may also be released in vapor form from some types of industrial or chemical operations.

Therefore, humans may be exposed to chloroform not only by ingestion of chloroform in drinking water, food, or soil, but also by dermal contact with contaminated media (especially water) and by inhalation of vapor (especially in indoor air).

History/Chronology

Date	Description
Sep 1984	EPA released the Health Effects Assessment for Chloroform.
Apr 1988	EPA released the Updated Health Effects Assessment for Chloroform.
Oct 2001	EPA released the final toxicological report and summary document and posted these to the IRIS database.
Sep 2017	EPA released the IRIS Assessment Plan (IAP) for Chloroform for public comment and review. [Federal Register Notice Sep 18, 2017]
Sep 2017	EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB) Chemical Assessment Advisory Committee (CAAC) discussed the draft document at a public meeting on September 27-28, 2017.
Jan 2018	EPA released the Systematic Review Protocol for the IRIS Chloroform Assessment (Inhalation) (Preliminary Assessment Materials). [Federal Register Notice Jan 31, 2018]
Dec 2024	EPA released an update to the IRIS Chloroform (inhalation) protocol.

Status

The IRIS Program will use the systematic review protocol to develop the draft assessment.

This download(s) is distributed solely for the purpose of pre-dissemination peer review under applicable information quality guidelines. It has not been formally disseminated by EPA. It does not represent and should not be construed to represent any Agency determination or policy.

• Systematic Review Protocol for the IRIS Chloroform Assessment (Inhalation) (Preliminary Assessment Materials) (PDF)  (76  pp, 1.2 MB, about PDF)
• SAB Briefings on IRIS Assessment Plan for Chloroform
• An Update to the Systematic Review Protocol for the IRIS Toxicological Review of Chloroform (Inhalation) (Dec 2024) (PDF)  (151  pp, 2.0 MB, about PDF)

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Document Related Link(s)

• Health Effects Assessment for Chloroform
• Updated Health Effects Assessment for Chloroform
• IRIS Toxicological Review of Chloroform (Final Report, 2001)
• IRIS Assessment Plan for Chloroform (Scoping and Problem Formulation Materials)

HERO Project

• Primary Literature Search References Sorted By Author (Choroform)

Federal Register Notices

• FR Notice: Jan 31, 2018

Docket

Comments on the assessment may be submitted and reviewed using the Docket ID EPA-HQ-ORD-2017-0497