22 January 2012 | Skin & Aging | www.skinandaging.com Allergic Contact Dermatitis (ACD) is an important disease that affects 14.5 million Americans each year. The economic impact of this condition is high, whether measured by patient morbidity, health care expenditures, loss of income or lost time from school and work. Once patch testing is performed and an allergen source has been identified, ...

BACKGROUND Occupational skin diseases, including allergic contact dermatitis (ACD), irritant contact dermatitis, and allergic contact urticaria (ACU), occur commonly among health care workers (HCWs). PURPOSE To evaluate the aetiology of the various skin diseases afflicting HCWs evaluated for suspicion of ACD and/or ACU and to identify the most common allergens among HCWs found to have ACD and...

Background Allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) is often under-recognized in the pediatric population. In the first years of life ACD it is often confused with other types of dermatitis, such as irritant dermatitis or atopic eczema (AE). In the last two decades an increase in ACD in children and adolescents was observed, reaching similar frequencies to those seen in adults (20-70%). ACD acquired i...

BACKGROUND Similarity in clinical symptoms between atopic eczema (AE) and allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) may lead to misdiagnoses in both clinical practice and epidemiological studies. As patch testing for contact allergy does not seem popular among paediatric allergists, the resulting bias leads mainly to under diagnosing of ACD and over diagnosing of AE in children and adolescents. OBJEC...

Allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) in children is increasing. Sensitization to contact allergens can start in early infancy. The epidermal barrier is crucial for the development of sensitization and elicitation of ACD. Factors that may influence the onset of sensitization in children are atopic dermatitis, skin barrier defects and intense or repetitive contact with allergens. Topical treatment o...

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a common inflammatory skin disease characterized by wet, oozing, erythematous, pruritic lesions in the acute stage and xerotic, lichenified plaques in the chronic stage. It frequently coexists with asthma and allergic rhinitis, sharing some mechanistic features with these diseases as part of the "atopic march." Controversy exists as to whether immune abnormalities, epi...

Conceptually, irritant contact dermatitis (irritation) and allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) in man should provide the ideal platforms to launch in vitro toxicology into the pantheon of in vitro testing assays. In theory, irritant dermatitis has been considered by most a simple area of cutaneous biology, whereas ACD is a complex area of biology. However, both result in responses that are reason...

Patch testing is a well-established method of diagnosing contact allergy wherein patients with a history and clinical picture of contact dermatitis are re-exposed to the suspected allergens under controlled conditions to verify the diagnosis [1]. The results of first innovative patch-testing technique were presented by the German dermatologist, Josef Jadassohn (1863-1936) in 1895. The safety an...

Correspondence to: Dr J S C English, Consultant Dermatologist, Queen’s Medical Centre, University Hospital, Nottingham NG7 2UH, UK; john.english@ mail.qmcuh-tr.trent.nhs.uk _________________________ C ontact dermatitis is an eczematous eruption caused by external agents, which can be broadly divided into irritant substances that have a direct toxic effect on the skin (irritant contact dermatiti...

BACKGROUND Plastics are a common cause of occupational skin disorders such as irritant or allergic contact dermatitis (ACD). CASE REPORT We report a case of occupational ACD due to a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic table cover used as a mouse pad for which we performed patch tests and obtained positive patch tests for the PVC table cover. Composition testing revealed the presence of phthalat...