Approximately 20% of shoe allergens are not detected with the current screening series, according to a retrospective study of more than 30,000 patients.
Contact allergy to shoes remains a common but difficult problem for many reasons, including the limited information from shoe manufacturers, differences in shoe manufacturing processes, and changes in shoe trends, said Raina Bembry, MD, a dermatitis research fellow at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, in a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Contact Dermatitis Society.
The North American Contact Dermatitis Group (NACDG) published data on shoe allergens from 2001-2004 in a 2007 review. To update this information to reflect changes in shoe manufacturing and trends, she and her coinvestigators characterized demographics, clinical characteristics, patch test results, and occupational data for NACDG patients with shoe contact allergy. They identified 33,661 patients who were patch tested with the standard series with or without a supplemental allergen between 2005 and 2018; over half were over aged 40 years.
The primary focus was individuals with a confirmed shoe (defined as shoes, boots, sandals, or slippers) as the source of a screening allergen or supplemental allergen, a positive patch test, and the foot as one of three sites of involvement.
