Glass fiber dermatitis

✍ Scribed by Alf Björnberg

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1985
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 349 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0271-3586
• DOI: 10.1002/ajim.4700080420

✦ Synopsis

Many workers exposed to glass fibers experience an intense pruritus (itching), sometimes accompanied by erythema, erosions, and dermatitis.

Patch tests to glass fibers provoked a papulovesicular dermatitis in about 25% of normal persons. Workers in the glass wool industry, whether or not clinically symptomatic, had the 5ame levels of patch-test reactivity.

A battery of skin tests failed to identify persons with an increased susceptibility to glass fiber pruritus. Some workers' skin becomes hardened by continuous exposure. This hardening is lost after a one-month holiday but is quickly regained.

Barrier creams had no protective value in preventing glass fiber dermatitis.