| Abstrakt: |
There is a growing impetus to the development of alternatives to animal testing for humane, scientific and economic reasons. This study describes recent experiments in this area employing in vitro models to assess skin irritation and skin corrosion for organosilicon compounds. Two commercially available in vitro assays (Skin2 1350 and CORROSITEX) were assessed using a range of 10 siloxane polymers and silanes to evaluate their ability to predict the skin corrosivity potential of these materials. Subsequent follow-up testing with the Skin21350 Skin irritation protocol was done on any materials found to be noncorrosive.The Skin21350 model was generally applicable for the in vitro assessment of skin irritancy and skin corrosivity of liquid silicone polymers and other materials, although some effort will be required to overcome the problems of working with awkward test materials (volatile, low surface tension materials) and to reduce the variability observed in the study of these materials. The correlation of the Skin2 in vitro skin irritancy results with known in vivo irritancy was generally good for silicone polymers, although alkoxysilanes (tetramethoxysi-lane, tetraethoxysilane) do not appear to give results that correspond well with their in vivo irritant properties.Both the Skin2 1350 and CORROSITEX models performed well in detecting corrosive and noncorrosive organosilicon compounds.The Skin21350 was, however, more reliable in its overall performance and specificity (correct identification of noncorrosive substances), although CORROSITEX appeared to be more sensitive (correct identification of corrosive materials and degree of corrosivity). Several silicone polymers and alkoxysilanes did not qualify for detection in the CORROSITEX model. It is recommended that a combination of these two assays could form a useful test battery to assess the skin corrosivity of organosilicon compounds and other materials. |
