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Organic Chemicals
Published in William J. Rea, Kalpana D. Patel, Reversibility of Chronic Disease and Hypersensitivity, Volume 4, 2017
William J. Rea, Kalpana D. Patel
Organic pigments are natural, synthetic, or combinations. The natural colorants come from fish and vegetables. Examples of the different categories of dyestuffs are mauveine and fuchsin, indigo, azo dyestuffs, indanthrene, phthalocyaines, and the reactive dyestuffs. The starting materials for organic colorants must contain inter alia, double bonds, or aromatic compounds. The basic aromatic compounds used as the bases of dyes are benzene, phenol, naphthalene, and diphenyl, all of which cause considerable problems for the chemically sensitive. Classification of organic colorants is as follows: azo, anthraquinone, indigoid, triarylmethane, sulfur, phthalocyanine, acridine, quinacridone, and perylene colorants.
An update on cutaneous complications of permanent tattooing
Published in Expert Review of Clinical Immunology, 2019
Tattoo inks are a mix of organic or inorganic pigments dispersed in water as well as additives to obtain ready-to-use tattooing products [14–17]. There is a high diversity of pigments used in tattoo inks. According to a recent US study, 44 different pigments were identified. They contain azo, diketopyrrolopyrrole, quinacridone, anthraquinone, dioxazine, or quinophthalone dyes. Metallic pigments are mainly iron, barium, zinc, copper, molybdenum, and titanium. Tattoo inks may contain several pigments [16]. Additives include binders (which bind the pigments particles to each other and the tattooing needle for easier injections into the skin), solvents and surfactants, preservative, and thickening agents [15]. Manufacturers in Europe have reinforced their inks following the resolution (ResAP(2008)1) on requirements and criteria for the safety of tattoos and permanent make-up (PMU) adopted by the council of Europe [18]. Lack of harmonized analytical methods, of guidelines for risk assessment and of guidelines for good manufacturing practice are still an issue for manufacturers [19]. In 2017, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) was asked by the European Commission to assess the chemical-related risks associated with the inks, the need for Union-wide action, and the relevant socio-economic impacts. In 2019, ECHA’s Committee for socio-economic analysis has adopted a restriction proposal on hazardous substances in tattoo inks and permanent make-up. The proposal has been forwarded to the European Commission for a draft regulation and possible amendment of Annex XVII to REACH [20]. Regarding cancer, in vivo tattooed mice models are currently showing no or only a weak cocarcinogenic effect, which is reassuring [21,22]. In the first model, immunocompetent hairless mice were tattooed with a black ink known to contain benzo(a)pyrene and then exposed to UV radiation (UVR). The development of UVR-induced squamous cell carcinoma was delayed on the tattooed areas compared to nontattooed areas [21]. In the second model, somewhat similar, immunocompetent hairless mice were tattoo with a red tattoo ink banned because of it contains 2-anisidine, a potential carcinogen. In this case, the time to the onset of the first and second tumor was identical in the red-tattooed group compared with the control group and only the third tumor appeared slightly faster in the red-tattooed group than in the controls [22]. In this late case, there seem indeed to be a cocarcinogenic effect that remains weak. The results give also insights regarding cases of keratoacanthomas on red tattoos as presented later in the article.