JLE

Environnement, Risques & Santé

MENU

An empirical method for setting toxicity reference values for sensitising effects after dermal exposure Volume 7, issue 4, juillet-août 2008

Authors
Institut national de l’environnement et des risques industriels (Ineris), Unité « Évaluation toxicologique des substances chimiques » (ETSC), Département des risques chroniques (DRC), Parc technologique ALATA, 60550 Verneuil-en-Halatte

The dermal exposure route is not taken into account in most health risk assessments conducted in France today for the protection of the general population. No dermal value is proposed by any of the 6 organizations that establish recognized health toxicity reference values (HTRV). Similarly, no method has been developed to quantify effects after dermal exposure in the workplace. Only a “skin notation” gives information on possible cutaneous absorption of the agent. It thus appears useful to explore methods for taking the dermal exposure route into account and particularly to develop a method for deriving HTRVs for dermal exposure. A review of the literature focused on empirical approaches (by determining adjustment factors, modelling excluded) to the dermal route is highly complex and many factors influence it. The quantification of sensitising effects after skin exposure has been studied, however, in the field of cosmetics. The method we propose to derive HTRVs for sensitising effects induced by skin exposure is based on 2 studies of cosmetics. It provides only an initial approach, because it concerns only one type of effect and skin exposure. Because of the complexity of the dermal route and the influence of numerous factors, the choice of uncertainty factors remains difficult and will require further discussion as knowledge progresses, especially data provided by the increasing number of modelling approaches. As part of the implementation of the REACH regulations, new cutaneous tests will be developed, and new substances will be tested, thus providing new data and expanding the method proposed to several other effects induced by dermal exposure.