The scientific and methodological bases of experimental studies for detecting and quantifying carcinogenic risks.

This paper outlines the aims and potential scope of experimental research for risk identification and assessment in industrial carcinogenesis (environmental and occupational). It then reviews the basic, general, and specific requisites of a rigorously scientific nature that are required to render experiments to be more appropriate and better geared to the information they seek. A range of experimental approaches to risk assessment are illustrated by results achieved in the Cancer Research Centre of the Ramazzini Foundation (CRC/RF). The paper ends with a call for closer relations and integration among experimental, epidemiologic, and biostatistical studies.