The Mouse Tail Phototoxicity Test

Abstract

Phototoxicity to drugs and to other compounds to which man may be exposed can be studied in a number of systems. Oscar Raab around the turn of the century was the pioneer in this field using paramecia, and since then a spectrum of organisms ranging from single cells to man have been used for this purpose (Table 1). In vitro techniques have the advantage of being easy to perform and inexpensive, but they don’t account for the metabolic handling of the drug, and results obtained in vitro are often flawed by the occurrence of false negative as well as positive reactions. These tests may give information about the phototoxic mechanism of action and they may be helpful in screening studies. However, their value in predicting clinical phototoxicity is usually limited (Ljunggren and Bjellerup, 1986).