Allergic contact dermatitis in humans-experimental and quantitative aspects

Abstract

Allergic contact dermatitis is a common and potentially disabling disease. The clinical definition of the disease is based on the history of the patient, clinical examination, patch testing, and a detailed, often repeated exposure assessment. The literature on evaluation and standardization of the diagnostic patch test is extensive [1].Less effort has been focused on experimental elicitation of the disease allergic contact dermatitis. Such studies are essential for confirmation of the diagnosis allergic contact dermatitis in the clinical situation, and serve as an important guideline for establishing estimates of the exposure concentrations that are safe with respect to elicitation of contact allergy in sensitized individuals. The present chapter reviews methods for experimental allergic contact dermatitis in humans, and the most important individual and exposure-related variables for the elicitation of allergic contact dermatitis.