Contact Allergy to Rubber Accelerators - a Clinical Study

This study will investigate what concentrations of the most common thiurams and carbamates that elicit allergic contact dermatitis under patch test and what concentrations of the rubber accelerators that elicit allergic contact dermatitis by repeated exposures under simulated use conditions. Further, it will investigate whether a damaged skin barrier as caused by wet work increase the severity of the allergic contact dermatitis. The participants will be assigned to either the SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate)-group or non SLS-group. For the participants of the SLS-group, one volar forearm will be randomized to be pre-irritated with a soap i.e. detergent: sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) for 24 hours to simulate wet work. The participants of the non SLS-group will not be pre-irritated with SLS. Following this, the participants' volar forearms will be exposed to thiurams or carbamates and a control solution every night for 7 nights to simulate the repeated exposure to rubber gloves with accelerators. The skin reactions will be read cf. current international guidelines and further quantified using laser Doppler flowmetry. During the study, all participants will be patch tested on the upper back with rubber accelerators to investigate their current degree of sensitization and the dose-response relationships.