Five Common Allergens Causing Contact Dermatitis Identified in Pediatric Population

Author(s):

In data presented at the AAAAI annual conference, 5 common contact dermatitis-causing allergens were identified, emphasizing the importance of patch testing.

Erin Rainosek, MD, MPH

New data shown at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) 2023 Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX, highlighted 5 major allergens that can often lead to contact dermatitis for patients aged 1 to 18.¹

Of those tested, the retrospective analysis indicated that methylisothiazolinone, hydroperoxides of linalool, hydroperoxides of limonene, cobalt, and nickel were the 5 most common allergens.

This analysis was led by Erin Rainosek, MD, MPH, a pediatric resident physician from the Mayo Clinic. The retrospective analysis included patch test data which had been gathered from 2016 to 2020 at 3 Mayo Clinic sites located in Arizona, Florida, and Minnesota.

The pediatric patients who underwent patch testing from the analysis were identified from a clinical database at the Mayo Clinic, and those on immunosuppressive therapy were excluded.

Of those tested, about 44% were male, 56% were female and the investigators found that 2% were aged 1-2 years, 42% were 3-10, 35% were 11-15, and 21% were 16-18.

Among the 192 children who were patch tested within the full age bracket in the study, the investigators found that 52.1% (100 children) showed positive reactions to at least 1 allergen.

The researchers only considered reactions that were scored 2+ or higher, and allergens with a sample size that was below 40 ended up being excluded.

Overall, the team identified the aforementioned top 5 most common allergens, but also found that 11 of the top 40 allergens with the highest rates of reaction were not contained within the American Contact Dermatitis Society Pediatric Baseline Series.

The investigators noted that this lack of inclusion in the series emphasized the importance of including a wider array of allergens for standard patch testing, adding that patch testing is a useful tool overall for clinicians to use in detecting allergies.

References

Rainosek, Erin et al. Allergic Contact Dermatitis in 192 children patch tested between 2016-2020. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaci.2022.12.458.