BACKGROUND: Preservatives are important contact allergens. However, any reports that have focused on them are relatively scanty in Korea. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to investigate the prevalence of preservative allergy in patients with suspected cosmetic contact dermatitis. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the patch test results and medical recordings of the patients who were suspected of having cosmetic contact dermatitis from January 2003 to December 2008 and who visited Seoul National University Hospital. A total of 330 patients (males: 69, females: 261) were enrolled in our study and the medical records included the patients' demographic information, the site of contact dermatitis, the past dermatologic diseases and the duration of the disease. We used 30 cosmetic preservative antigens. RESULTS: The mean age of the patients was 42.5 years and the most common age of the group with contact dermatitis was in the forties. The most prevalent site for contact dermatitis was the face (60.3%). Forty nine patients (14.8%) had a past history of atopic dermatitis. A hundred thirty nine patients (42.1%) showed at least one positive patch test result. Thiomerosal showed the highest patch test rate (10.6%), followed by cocamidopropylbetaine (8.1%), Euxyl K400 (7.8%), Dodecyl gallate (6.9%) and Octyl gallate (6.6%). CONCLUSION: As the positive rate of a patch test with preservative antigens was relatively high, certain preservative antigens contained in the cosmetic series should be included in the patch test for patients with suspected cosmetic contact dermatitis.
Allergens ; Betaine ; Cosmetics ; Dermatitis, Atopic ; Dermatitis, Contact ; Gallic Acid ; Humans ; Hypersensitivity ; Medical Records ; Patch Tests ; Prevalence ; Retrospective Studies

BACKGROUND: Physiological parameters of the skin measured by non-invasive methods have been considerably developed. It is known that there are some differences in physiologic parameters between different races. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to understand the differences between the races. METHODS: A total of 757 Mongolian participated in this study. All subjects had no major history of skin diseases requiring medical treatment. Several instruments were used such as Sebumeter, Corneometer, Mexameter for measuring sebum excretion rate, values of capacitance, melanin index and erythema index respectively. These were measured on various areas of the skin such as cheek, forehead, palm, outer arm, inner arm, back and buttock. RESULTS: The sebum excretion rates showed higher in males than in females on the cheek and forehead in Mongolian. However, they showed higher in the females on the palm. There were good correlation between the skin sebum level and the capacitance in males and females. The melanin index and erythema index showed higher in males than in females at all sites. When we compared this with the data published in other countries, many data were similar to Korean rather than a western country's. However, the capacitance data were lower than those of Korean. CONCLUSION: Although, this study has some limit for direct comparison between each race, our results can be used as basic data for the comparison between Mongolian and other races in the future.
Arm ; Bioengineering ; Cheek ; Continental Population Groups ; Erythema ; Female ; Forehead ; Humans ; Male ; Melanins ; Sebum ; Skin ; Skin Diseases