New Insights to Compare and Choose TKTD Models for Survival Based on an Interlaboratory Study for Lymnaea stagnalis Exposed to Cd

Toxicokinetic-toxicodynamic (TKTD) models, as the General Unified Threshold model of Survival (GUTS), provide a consistent process-based framework compared to classical dose–response models to analyze both time and concentration-dependent data sets. However, the extent to which GUTS models (Stochastic Death (SD) and Individual Tolerance (IT)) lead to a better fitting than classical dose–response model at a given target time (TT) has poorly been investigated. Our paper highlights that GUTS estimates are generally more conservative and have a reduced uncertainty through smaller credible intervals for the studied data sets than classical TT approaches. Also, GUTS models enable estimating any x% lethal concentration at any time (LCx,t), and provide biological information on the internal processes occurring during the experiments. While both GUTS-SD and GUTS-IT models outcompete classical TT approaches, choosing one preferentially to the other is still challenging. Indeed, the estimates of survival rate over t...