Dermal Sensitizing Potential of Glutaraldehyde: A Review and Recent Observations

Isolated case reports indicate a potential for glutaraldehyde to cause allergic contact dermatitis. The number of reports relative to the widespread and diverse usage of glutaraldehyde suggest a low incidence of sensitization to the material. This is confirmed by the comparatively few cases of sensitization to glutaraldehyde described in reports documenting the use of glutaraldehyde to treat various dermatological disorders. A review of case reports, and of the limited definitive investigations into the sensitizing potential, suggest that the threshold concentration for glutaraldehyde in aqueous solution to induce dermal sensitization is in the range 0.1% to 1.0%. Recently conducted studies of human volunteers, described in this paper, show the eliciting threshold concentration for dermal sensitization by glutaraldehyde in water is 0.5%.