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While engineered SiO₂ nanoparticle toxicity is being widely investigated, mostly on cell lines or in acute animal experiments, the practical importance of as well as the theoretical interest in industrial condensation aerosols with a high SiO₂ particle content seems to be neglected. That is why, to the best of our knowledge, long-term inhalation exposure to nano-SiO₂ has not been undertaken in experimental nanotoxicology studies. To correct this data gap, female white rats were exposed for 3 or 6 months 5 times a week, 4 h a day to an aerosol containing predominantly submicron (nanoscale included) particles of amorphous silica at an exposure concentration of 2.6 ± 0.6 or 10.6 ± 2.1 mg/m³. This material had been collected from the flue-gas ducts of electric ore smelting furnaces that were producing elemental silicon, subsequently sieved through a < 2 μm screen and redispersed to feed a computerized “nose only …