Dermatitis and other skin disorders

Causative agents*

Causative agents recorded by the physicians reporting to EPIDERM or OPRA during 2006-08 are shown in Table THORS06, and those agents accounting for more than 5% of diagnoses during that period are shown in Figure 2. The most common agents were "soaps and cleaners", "wet work", and "rubber chemicals and materials". There may be some degree of overlap between agent categories with some diagnoses being assigned more than one agent code. For example, some cases caused by the use of latex gloves may appear in both the "rubber chemicals and materials" and "personal protective equipment" categories.

A recent analysis of THOR data for 2002-2005 found that 43% of cases of contact dermatitis reported to EPIDERM were allergic in nature, 40% were irritant and the remainder mixed or unspecified. Of contact dermatitis reports to OPRA over the same period there were nearly three times as many irritant cases as allergic cases - though about half of all cases were unspecified².

Figure 2: Most common agents for contact dermatitis, 2006-08

* & ^† Because the coverage of British industry by occupational physicians varies by type of industry and occupation the dermatologist (EPIDERM) data alone should be used for making comparative statements between different agents, industries and occupations. Given that there is not thought to be a great deal of overlap in cases reported in the two schemes, data from both chest physicians (EPIDERM) and occupational physicians (OPRA) can be combined to give the most complete available estimate for any particular subgroup.