News on Contact Allergy Causes

Researchers from the University of Gothenburg's Faculty of Science, revealed that the perfumes used in many household products as well as in some skincare products can cause contact allergies when exposed to oxygen in the air.

They have studied the way that oxygen activates these substances and how they affect the skin, and one study in particular assessed whether the activated fragrances cause contact allergy when tested on eczema patients, at Sahlgrenska University Hospital's Dermatology Clinic and the Occupational and Environmental Dermatology Clinic in Malmö.

After this experiment, the researchers concluded that most of the 3,400 eczema patients had a positive allergic reaction to the substances.

This discovery means that health services should be able to diagnose allergic contact eczema more efficiently now, thanks to these new diagnostic tools, thus reducing the number of cases of allergic eczema in the long run.

Also, for patients this means that they should be able to avoid exposure to allergenic substances, and have a better chance of healing from their eczema.

Ann-Therese Karlberg, professor of dermatochemistry and skin allergy at the Faculty of Science's Department of Chemistry, and a researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy, says that “in a bid to gain a deeper understanding of how contact allergy occurs, we are now using state-of-the-art microscopic equipment to follow what happens to an allergen once it gets into the skin.”

Normally, to see how allergenic a substance is, the skin's ability to activate a substance through the metabolism should also be considered.

“We've developed a mixture that reflects the content of real skin enzymes, and use it to investigate whether the chemical substances can be activated in the skin and become allergenic,” Karlberg adds.

“Future work will see us evaluating new diagnostic methods and carrying out in-depth studies of what goes on in the skin.

“This will enable us to develop new medicines and replace the only treatment that is currently available for eczema, namely cortisone cream,” she explains.

This research will be presented at the dermatologist conference in Gothenburg.