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.