A guidance for assessing dermal absorption (DA) is used for the purpose of exposure assessment and an assessment of eventual risks of active substances used in plant protection products (PPPs). As expected, its previous version from 2012 was updated in May 2017.

For more details, see EFSA Journal 2017;15(6):4873. The guidance is at disposal electronically at the website of EFSA.

As a new feature, EFSA launched a calculator of dermal exposure at their website:

EFSA Guidance on dermal absorption

• Template for dermal absorption in vitro calculations_v2
• Template for dermal absorption in vitro calculations_example_v2

For more details, see refined BfR template for in vitro calculations or EFSA - pesticide evaluation - Tools

Guidance on dermal absorption - SANTE/2018/10591 rev.1 (24 October 2018) 

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), following its standard procedures for development of guidance documents, including consultation of stakeholders and general public, has published the following guidance document: EFSA, 2017. Guidance on dermal absorption. EFSA Journal 2017;15(6):4873 [60 pp.].

A corrigendum (minor modification) has been adopted in the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed on 24 October 2018.

For the purpose of this guidance document a plant protection product is considered:

1. A "concentrate" when the active substance is present in the plant protection product at a concentration higher than 50 g/L (or 50 g/Kg or 5%);
2. A "dilution" when the active substance is present in the plant protection product at a concentration lower or equal to than to 50 g/L (or 50 g/Kg or 5%).

The Member States may decide in the future to carry out further more precise analysis of the data and agree, if they consider it appropriate, a threshold value different from 5% to discriminate between a "concentrate" and a "dilution".

Posted: 3. 7. 2017, latest update: 24. 11. 2021