物质分组有多稳健？

物质分组有多稳健？

How robust is substance grouping?

短名单层面的物质分组旨在兼顾包容性而非稳健性。事实上，一些被认为对分组无关紧要的分子结构细微差异，实际上却具有毒理学意义。此类考虑将在人工筛选过程中进行，在这种情况下，可能会将物质组拆分为更小的子组，或者对物质进行单独评估。因此，物质组的稳健性取决于我们所处的流程/阶段以及该阶段所需的确定性水平。

Substance grouping at the level of short listing is designed to be inclusive rather than robust. It is indeed true, that small differences in molecular structure that are considered insignificant for grouping are toxicologically relevant. Such considerations will be made during manual screening, in which case it is possible that the group will be split in smaller subgroups, or the substances will be assessed individually. Hence, the robustness of the group depends at the process/stage we are at and at the level of certainty this stage requires.