Contact sensivity to Allium in hand eczema

Objective: In recent years, studies about contact sensitivity to garlic, particularly regarding the patients who have hand eczema, are being published in different countries. Considering that the garlic is heavily consumed food in our country, it is aimed to do a research on incidence of the contact sensitivity to the said plant regarding the patients in our region who have hand eczemaMaterial and Methods: Patch tests with European Standard Series and diallyl disulfide which is one of the most important allergens of garlic are made to 67 patients (45 women, 22 men) who have hand eczemaContact sensitivity to diallyl disulfide has been confirmed regarding just one patient (1.5%). It has been observed at least one positiveness regarding the patch test with European Standard Series on 31 patients (46.3%) through all patients. Even though there has been no correlation confirmed between positiveness regarding the patch test and the characteristics such as sex and age of the patient, localization, phase and severity of the eczema, hand-washing frequency and atopy; the positiveness of patch test regarding the patients who have hand eczema for more than two years is significantly more frequent.Conclusion: Even though the incidence of the contact sensitivity to diallyl disulfide is deemed as sufficient for this substance to join in the standard patch test, the patient series should be enlarged in order to confirm whether this finding is meaningful. The patch test with European Standard Series would be applied to all patients who have hand eczema, and shall certainly be applied to the ones who have hand eczema for a long time.