Skin corrosion refers to the production of irreversible damage to the skin manifested as visible necrosis through the epidermis and into the dermis, following the application of a test material.
Test materials are applied to the stratum corneum of the epidermal model (one epidermis unit per test material) for three different exposure periods: 3 minutes, 1 hour, and 4 hours. The viability of the epidermis is assessed by measuring the mitochondrial activity. The tissues are incubated for 3 hours with MTT solution (0.3 mg/l; 2.2 ml per well). MTT, a yellow-coloured tetrazolium salt, is reduced by succinate dehydrogenase into a blue formazan precipitate in the mitochondria of living cells. The optical density of the blue colour can be detected by spectrophotometric utensil.