An

na Jo

sefson

Nickel allergy and hand eczem

a – epidemiological aspects

ÖREBROSTUDIES INMEDICINE

47

2010

issn 1652-4063isbn 978-91-7668-765-9

Anna Josefson went to the University of Gothenburg Medical School and obtained her Medical Degree in 1992. Since her internship in Örebro she has been employed at the Department of Dermatology at Örebro University Hospi-tal. She obtained a Specialist Degree in Dermatology and Venereology in 2001 and was shortly after introduced to dermatological research. She was registered as a doctoral student at the University of Örebro in 2007 and during the past years she has combined her doctoral studies with clinical work at the Department of Dermatology.

Contact allergy is frequent in the general population and nickel allergy is the most common of all. Some nickel-sensitized individuals develop allergic contact dermatitis, and nickel allergy has been discussed as a risk factor for hand eczema. However, hand eczema is one of the most frequently occur-ring skin diseases and has a multifactorial origin. Historically, most studies probing the association between hand eczema and nickel allergy have been performed at dermatology departments and thus only included patients with eczema or other skin symptoms. This thesis work probes deeper into the as-sociation between nickel allergy and hand eczema in the general population. Contact allergy is a field under constant development due to environmental changes over time as new chemicals are introduced in consumer and industrial products and others are phased out. Continuous epidemiological surveillance is necessary to determine the prevalence of contact allergy. In this thesis, tools for estimating the prevalence of nickel allergy have been validated.

Örebro Studies in Medicine 47örebro 2010

Doctoral Dissertation

Nickel allergy and hand eczema – epidemiological aspects

Anna JosefsonMedical Science

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ickel allergy and hand eczema – epidem

iological aspects