Dermatitis caused by physical irritants

✍ Scribed by R. Morris-Jones; S.J. Robertson; J.S. Ross; I.R. White; J.P. McFadden; R.J.G. Rycroft

• Book ID: 104460208
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 76 KB
• Volume: 147
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0007-0963
• DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-2133.2002.04852.x

✦ Synopsis

Background:

Although physical irritant contact dermatitis (picd) is a common occupational dermatosis, it is one of the least well understood because of its multiple types, lack of diagnostic test, and the many mechanisms involved in its production.

Objectives:

To characterize the materials and mechanisms of physical irritation of the skin.

Methods:

We did a retrospective analysis over the past 20 years of all patients with a diagnosis of picd at st john's institute of dermatology contact dermatitis clinic.

Results:

Of the 29,000 patients who attended the clinic over the study period, 392 patients were diagnosed with picd and of these, 335 files were analysed.

Conclusions:

Our findings show that picd accounted for 1.15% of all patients attending the contact clinic over the study period. diverse occupations and materials were implicated. the most common cause of picd was low humidity due to air-conditioning, which caused dermatitis of the face and neck in office workers due to drying out of the skin.