Abstract
Background: The common allergens for patients with allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) have changed with the passage of time. Ammoniated mercury was the most common allergen in the 1980s, but it has been replaced by nickel sulphate. Objective: We wanted to delineate the recent alterations of common allergens of Korean ACD patients. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical recordings of the patients who were diagnosed with ACD and we performed patch tests on these patients from July 2005 to May 2008. A total of 676 patients were enrolled in this study and the medical records included the patients’ age and gender, the site of ACD, the clinical pictures and the results of a Korean standard series of patch tests. Results: The male to female ratio was 1.62 and the mean age of onset was 41.2±16.5 years. The most common ages of the ACD patients were the forties for males and the thirties for females. The most prevalent sites for ACD were the face, scalp and hands in males, while those for females were the face, hands and arms in order of frequency, respectively. The most common allergens were nickel sulfate for females and mercury ammonium chloride for males. Conclusion: For ACD, the relative proportion of male patients has recently been markedly enlarged. This phenomenon might be related to the increased use of men’s cosmetic products, and the market for these products had tremendously expanded during the last decade. (Korean J Dermatol 2008;46(10):1362∼1368)