Evaluation on skin irritation of bee venom in human

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the skin irritation of bee venom (melittin) in human. Skin irritation test was performed at 0.05% bee venom by 48 h single patch test in 30 healthy volunteers with no skin disease and skin sensitization test was performed by local lymph node assay in animal. In single patch test, 28 human subjects showed no reaction and 2 subjects showed 1+ or 3+ grade skin reaction. In a skin sensitization test of bee venom conducted using mice. no erythema was observed on the dorsal side of mice up to 8 days after application of bee venom on the skin. The results of the average stimulation index by ATP values showed that there was no irritation to the mice skin at 0.005% and 0.01% of bee venom. Therefore, bee venom is not likely to induce a significant skin irritation under 0.05% concentration. © 2017, Korean Society of Pharmacognosy. All rights reserved.