Patch Test Results from an Occupational and Contact Dermatitis Clinic in a Tertiary Care Hospital of Southern India: A Retrospective Study.

INTRODUCTION: Occupational contact dermatitis, accounting for 95% of cases of occupational dermatoses, is the most common occupational skin disease.

AIM: To find out the various allergens in different occupational and environmental settings causing contact allergy, from our patients presented with contact dermatitis.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: It was a retrospective study from the data in hospital outpatient register over one year period, which includes patients with age ranging from 11 years to 73 years. Patch test was done with total of 24 allergens from Indian standard battery and Indian standard series and with materials suspected to cause contact allergy. Result was expressed in terms of percentage.

RESULTS: Contact dermatitis constitutes about 0.75% of total dermatological cases in our Dermatology Outpatient Department. A total of 358 contact dermatitis were included in this study with M:F ratio 2.25:1 and majority of the cases in the age group of 26-55 years. Out of 358 cases, 157 cases were positive to at least one allergen. Building construction workers constitute about 35.75% (128 cases) of total contact dermatitis cases, among which potassium dichromate (39 out of 57) is the most common allergen, followed by nickel (31) and cobalt (28). In other occupations, contact allergy to parthenium, hair dye, foot wear, paint, kum-kum , turmeric, detergents and cosmetics were also present in significant number and none was positive for vegetables, dettol, kerosene and native medication.

CONCLUSION: This study gives an idea about the common occupation and population who are prone to develop contact dermatitis in our environmental setting and also about the most common sensitizers involved in various occupation and environment.