Dermal uptake of petroleum substances

Reported results spanned over 5-6 orders of magnitude and were largely dependent on experimental conditions in particular on the type of the vehicle used. In general, aromatic hydrocarbons showed higher dermal absorption than more lipophilic aliphatics with similar molecular weight. The results showed high variation and were largely influenced by experimental conditions emphasizing the need of performing the experiments under “in use” scenario. The predictive models overestimated experimental absorption. The overall conclusion is that, based on the observed percutaneous penetration data, dermal exposure to petroleum hydrocarbons, even of aromatics with highest dermal absorption is limited and highly unlikely to be associated with health risks under real use scenarios.