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European Journal of Dermatology

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Contact allergy caused by methylisothiazolinone: the Belgian-French experience Volume 25, numéro 3, May-June 2015

Illustrations


  • Figure 1

Tableaux

Auteurs
1 Department of Dermatology,
University Hospital Antwerp,
B-2650 Antwerp, Belgium
2 Department of Dermatology,
University Hospitals K.U.Leuven,
B-3000, Leuven, Belgium
3 Department of Dermatology,
Larrey University Hospital,
CHU Toulouse, 31059 Toulouse France
* Reprints

In the eighties, the preservative agent Kathon CG®, a mixture of methylchloro-isothiazolinone (MCI) and methylisothiazolinone (MI) in a 3:1 ratio, was the cause of a worldwide epidemic of contact-allergic reactions, with approximately 5% of the patients tested with the baseline series reacting to it. Following European legislation, which limited its use concentration in cosmetic products to a maximum of 15 ppm (0.0015%) instead of the former 30 ppm, the number of cases of contact allergy dropped [...]