İbrahim Halil Aydoğdu | Esen Özkaya Department of Dermatology and Venereology, İstanbul Faculty of Medicine, İstanbul University, İstanbul, Turkey

Correspondence: İbrahim Halil Aydoğdu (该Email地址已收到反垃圾邮件插件保护。要显示它您需要在浏览器中启用JavaScript。)

Received: 26 April 2025 | Revised: 14 June 2025 | Accepted: 30 June 2025

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Keywords: allergic contact dermatitis | carbamate | epidemiology | glove | mercapto | nonoccupational | occupational | patch test | rubber additives | thiuram

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2025 The Author(s). Contact Dermatitis published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

ABSTRACT

Background: Rubber additives are common causes of allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) worldwide, yet data from Turkey remain

Objectives: To evaluate the prevalence of rubber additive sensitisation and its clinical/occupational relevance in a tertiary re ferral centre.

Methods: A retrospective study on 2687 consecutively patch-tested patients with rubber additives at our allergy unit between 1996 and 2023.

Results: Rubber sensitisation was found in 10.6%, with a slight increase after 2010. Male predominance was noted (female: male=1:2.3). Thiurams and carbamates were the most frequent sensitizers. ACD was diagnosed in 7.9%, primarily caused  by gloves (85.5%). Hands were most commonly affected (94.4%). Logistic regression analysis showed that thiuram and carba mate sensitisation was significantly associated with hand eczema, while benzothiazole derivatives were linked to foot eczema. Airborne ACD occurred in 4.2%, mainly in healthcare workers. Hand eczema with and without wrist extension was observed with similar frequency. Occupational ACD accounted for 79.3% of cases, especially among construction (56.8%) and healthcare workers (14.8%), with a relative increase in the latter group after 2015.

Conclusions: The high prevalence of sensitisation from rubber gloves is concerning. Legal measures are urgently needed, includ ing safer additives and clearer glove labelling. Patch testing remains essential, even without the classic glove-pattern distribution.