Characteristics of Clinical Cases of Pesticide-related Dermatitis over the Past Decade

• Published in: JOURNAL OF THE JAPANESE ASSOCIATION OF RURAL MEDICINE Vol. 48; no. 2; pp. 83 - 95
• Main Authors: HORIUCHI, Nobuyuki, SEKI, Shiho
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese; English
• Published: THE JAPANESE ASSOCIATION OF RURAL MEDICINE 1999
• ISSN: 0468-2513; 1349-7421
• DOI: 10.2185/jjrm.48.83

Pesticide-related dermatitis has a high rate of incidence in rural communities, adversely affecting the health and livelihood of farmers. The important task we should take upon ourselves is to find out how to reduce exposure to agricultural chemicals directly injurious to the health of rural people.Especially, regarding those skin disorders characterized by chemical burns due to severe irritation or allergic contact dermatitis that develops as a result of sensitization reaction to chemicals, the mainstay of prevention is identification of allergens and substances causing skin disturbances and avoidance of exposure to them. From this standpoint, we made clinical and epidemiological studies in a total of 380 patients who were treated for pesticide-related dermatitis at the Department of Dermatology of Saku Central Hospital, Nagano, during the period of 23 years from 1975 to 1997. As a result, the following points were made clear as features of dermatitis associated with exposure to agricultural chemicals over the past 10 years:(1) The number of severe cases that require medical treatment has been on the decrease;(2) there has been a tendency to increase in the incidence of chemical burn type dermatitis by irritantagents such as Dazomet, Glyphosate and methyl bromide; and (3) the occurrence of chronic and solar type dermatitis has been declining.