Protein Contact Dermatitis

Overview

Protein contact dermatitis (PCD) is according to contemporary views a chronic relapsing eczemain response to proteins which develops as a result of a combined early and late type of immunoallergicsensitivity. It affects atopic and non-atopic subjects, the domaine is above all food allergy and thehand (forearm).In the diagnosis of PCD above all major suspicion of exposure, the clinical picture, skin tests forearly allergy are important (scratch, scratch-patch tests, prick-tests, i.c. tests) supplemented byspecific IgE. Simple patch tests produce almost always false negative reactions andmay be the sourceof major diagnostic errors: normal values of specific IgE do not rule out immune reactivity either.Definition (and knowledge) of this subtype in the group of contact eczema is an importantcontribution to diagnosis in practice and to medical assessment as previously some patients withPCD (in particular of the hands) were not correctly diagnosed and classified. It is expedient topreserve the subtype of protein contact dermatitis as an item in the mosaic of contact eczema.

Key words:
protein contact dermatitis - skin tests - IgE - contact eczema