Percutaneous absorption of hexachlorophene in rats, guinea pigs and pigs.

A comparative study of the percutaneous absorption of hexachlorophene (HCP) was undertaken in rats, guinea pigs and pigs. [14C]Hexachlorophene ([14C]HCP) was applied evenly over the shaved back of the animals at a dose of 40 microgram/cm2 skin surface. Urine and feces were collected at 24-h intervals for 5 days from animals kept in metabolism cages. Different methods were used for quantitating the percutaneous absorption of HCP. This study showed that skin permeability to HCP decreased in the following order: rat, guinea pig and pig. The permeability characteristics of the pig skin to topically applied HCP were comparable to the published human data. We suggest that pig may be a suitable animal model for studying the percutaneous absorption of antimicrobial drugs.