Prevalence of late cutaneous reactivity to metabisulfites in patients with and without chronic eczema in Argentina

Methods Twenty two participants, 14 males and 8 females (mean age 31 years old), without eczema (Group 1) and 20 patients, 3 males and 17 females (mean age 35 years old), with chronic eczema (Group 2), living in Rosario, Argentina, were patch tested (PT) with sodium metabisulfite (MBS – CAS: 7681-57-4) 1% in petrolatum and with Brazilian Contact Standard Series (FDA Allergenic, Brazil). For the test, Finn Chambers (SmartPractice, USA) with 8mm (standard series) and 12mm (MBS) of diameter were used and the patch testing was performed according to the International Contact Dermatitis Research Group criteria (2 days of occlusion, readings on D2 and D4, using a score from + to +++). Chisquared test was used to examine whether there was a significantly statistical difference between positive reactions frequencies observed in two groups. The significance level for group differences was set at p< 0.05. The software used for this analysis was the GraphPad Prism version 6.