Allergic contact dermatitis is a significant cause of cutaneous disease affecting
many individuals. Patch testing, when used properly, often provides support for the
diagnosis of allergic contact dermatitis.
This article reports patch testing results from July 1, 1994, to June 30, 1996, by
the North American Contact Dermatitis Group (NACDG).
Patients evaluated in our patch test clinics were tested with the same screening series
of allergens by the use of a standardized patch testing technique. The data from these
patients were recorded on a standard computer entry form and analyzed.
Forty-nine allergens were tested on 3120 patients. Budesonide was added to the series
in July 1995 and tested on 1678 patients. Of these patients, 66.5% had positive allergic
patch test reactions, and 57% had at least one allergic reaction that was felt to
be clinically relevant to the present or past dermatitis. The 20 screening allergens
commercially available to United States dermatologists in the Allergen Patch Test
Kit, accounted for only 54.1% of the patients with positive allergic reactions. The
additional 30 allergens on the NACDG screening series accounted for 47% of patients
with positive allergic reactions. Had the Allergen Patch Test Kit alone been used,
12.4% of all patients tested may have had their disease misclassified as a nonallergic
disorder, and an additional 34.4% of all tested patients would not have had their
allergies fully defined. Among those patients with positive responses to the supplemental
allergens, 81% of the responses were of present or past relevance. The 12 most frequent
contact allergens were nickel sulfate, fragrance mix, thimerosal, quaternium-15, neomycin
sulfate, formaldehyde, bacitracin, thiuram mix, balsam of Peru, cobalt chloride, para-phenylenediamine,
and carba mix. The present relevance varied with the specific allergen from 10.7%
(thimerosal) to 85.7% (quaternium-15). Among newer allergens, methyldibromoglutaronitrile/phenoxyethanol
(cosmetic preservative) caused positive allergic reactions in 2% of the patients;
tixocortol-21-pivalate and budesonide (corticosteroids), in 2.0% and 1.1% of the patients,
respectively; and ethylene urea/melamine formaldehyde mix (textile resin), in 5% of
the patients.
The usefulness of patch testing is enhanced with the number of allergens tested, because
allergens not found on the commercially available screening series in the United States
frequently give relevant allergic reactions.