Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) has been approved as a pharmaceutical active ingredient, is used as the industry standard biological tissue cryoprotectant and is a pharmaceutical excipient that enhances the transdermal permeation of various drugs. The utility of pharmaceutical-grade DMSO as a skin penetration enhancer will be examined based on its physical properties, mode of action and concentration dependent characteristics. Since DMSO has been shown to have anti-inflammatory and analgesic activity, when used as a topical pharmaceutical excipient, DMSO cannot be viewed as a clinically inert, inactive ingredient for certain localized skin conditions. The toxicology and elimination kinetics of DMSO will be discussed in relation to using higher purity DMSO to diminish the incidence of garlic-like or oyster-like breath in patients after applying DMSO to the skin. The use of pharmaceutical grade DMSO having > 99.99% purity provides a fresh perspective in developing topical formulations. With its impurity profile being from 1000 PPM in standard USP-NF grades (99.9% purity) to <100 PPM (99.99% purity).
Albayatia et al. (Fri,) studied this question.