Imaging of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticle Penetration in Human Skin In Vitro and In Vivo

    January 2008 in “ Journal of biomedical optics ”
    Andrei V. Zvyagin, Xin Zhao, Audrey Gierden, Washington Y. Sanchez, Justin A. Ross, Michael S. Roberts
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    Studysummary This study found that ZnO nanoparticles in topical skin products do not penetrate beyond the outer skin layers in humans, suggesting minimal safety concerns for subdermal absorption. Our plain-language summary of this paper — not a Tressless recommendation.
    The study investigated the penetration of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-nano) in human skin using various imaging techniques and found that ZnO-nano remained in the stratum corneum and did not penetrate deeper skin layers. This was confirmed through both in vitro and in vivo experiments involving human subjects of different ethnic backgrounds. The findings suggested that ZnO-nano used in sunscreens is unlikely to pose safety concerns due to its lack of subdermal penetration.
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