In a survey for coronary risk factors 14 667 adult men and women answered a questionnaire on lifestyle, diet, and health, including whether they had psoriasis. The overali prevalence of psoriasis was 4-79% in men and 4-85% in women. The data showed an increasing incidence of psoriasis. The association with family history, lifestyle, diet, and health was explored by multiple regression analysis. The occurrence of psoriasis in first degree relatives contributed to more than 90% of the explained variance for both sexes. Of the other variables, only the positive association with rheumatoid arthritis was significant in both sexes.It is concluded that the examined environmental factors have only minor effects on the prevalence of psoriasis.
A total of 1481 hospital employees answered a questionnaire on atopy, hand eczema, and dry chapped hands. Out of 864 (58.7%) responders, 17% claimed to suffer from hand eczema. There was not significantly more hand eczema among women (17.6%) than men (15.7%). Atopic disposition was present in 17.5% of responders, of whom a significantly higher number (36.4%) claimed to have hand eczema. Dry chapped hands seemed to be a problem in 33.1%, mainly among nurses, assistant nurses and laboratory assistants. Technicians and X-ray assistants (38%) and kitchen workers (35.7%) claimed to suffer significantly more from hand eczema than others. Their working conditions were inspected. Following examination by a dermatologist, irritant contact eczema was diagnosed in 11 of 17, and occupational eczema in 3. None of the janitors or technical workers (all men) had hand eczema.
As a parallel project to a coronary risk factor survey in northern Norway, 14,667 men and women aged 18-55 years answered questions concerning the occurrence of allergic hand eczema. 364 men (4.9%) and 961 women (13.2%) had had allergic hand eczema during the previous 12 months. 49 men (0.7%) and 105 women (1.4%) claimed to have had one or more sick leaves because of hand eczema during the preceding 3 years. 114 subjects reported both eczema last year and sick leave during the preceding 3 years, of whom 74 were already registered in the files of the regional department of dermatology. The majority had irritant contact dermatitis. The incidence of hand eczema appears to be high in this part of Norway and the possibility that the subarctic climate may increase skin irritancy is discussed.
Investigations on light reactions in a patient with vitiligo are presented. The minimal erythema dose (MED) in the UVB area was approximately 1/3 of that in persons of skin type II. The application of furocoumarins (psoralens) increased light tolerance by 1 MED at 300-310 nm. Action spectrum studies with furocoumarins from Heracleum laciniatum showed the following order of potency: bergapten, pimpinellin, angelicin and sphondin. The efficacy was highest at 325-350 nm, with maxima at 330-335 nm. Pimpinellin was recently found to be phototoxic, but an action spectrum of sphondin is reported for the first time.
At a major fish factory in northern Norway, workers employed in fish-stick and fillet production participated in a survey on skin diseases. 122 (80.1%) of the workers in the fish-stick section responded, but only 60.7% of the fillet workers. Clinical examination and patch testing revealed 16 cases of occupational dermatitis among workers in fish stick production, 3 of whom had contact urticaria from mustard and 8 from fish. There were only found 6 cases of occupational dermatitis among fillet workers; 3 reacted to fish and 3 had irritant contact dermatitis. Working conditions are described for both locations. A greater exposure to irritants may in part explain the 10.7% occupational dermatitis in the fish-stick section compared to only 3.5% in the fillet section.
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