Occupational contact dermatitis in tertiary university hospital: a 5-year retrospective study.

BACKGROUND

Thailand, an agricultural country developing into an industrial country, has diferences in work environment, substance exposure, and climate. These factors may lead to a distinct epidemiology of occupational contact dermatitis (OCD).

OBJECTIVE

To study the prevalence of allergic and irritant occupational contact dermatitis in Thailand.

MATERIAL AND METHOD

The records of patients diagnosed of OCD and patch tested between 2006 and 2010 at Siriraj University Hospital were retrospectively reviewed.

RESULTS

From 885patch tested patients, 194 (21.9%) had OCD. Of those 194 patients, 76.8% were female and23.2% were male. Allergic contact dermatitis (ACD; 76.3%) wasfoundto be more common than irritant contact dermatitis (ICD; 24.2%). The common affectedpart was hands (51.5%). The mostfrequent occupation was wet work (35.1%), followed by office work (24.7%), industrial work (16%), and medical personnel (13.4%). The most common occupational allergens were nickel sulfate (33.1%), potassium dichromate (19.6%), and carba mix (15.5%). Water (56.1%), foods (4.9%), and oil/grease (2.4%) were the most common occupational irritants.

CONCLUSION

In our setting, allergic OCD was more common than irritant OCD. Nickel sulfate was the most common occupational allergen. Occupational A CD and lCD are most commonly found in industrial work and wet works, respectively.