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Panminerva Medica 2000 September;42(3):217-22

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Latex allergy. History, diagnosis and prevention

Tomei F., Martini A., Marcellini L., Riservato R.

From the Cattedra di Medicina del Lavoro Università “La Sapienza”, Roma, Italy

During the ­past 10 ­years the inci­dence of nat­u­ral rub­ber ­latex (NRL) aller­gy has dra­mat­i­cal­ly ­increased. It ­occurs pre­dom­i­nant­ly in cer­tain ­high ­risk ­group: ­health ­care work­ers, ­latex indus­try work­ers, ­immune com­pro­mised indi­vid­u­als (­such as chil­dren ­with spi­na bifi­da) and per­sons ­with pos­i­tive ­risk fac­tors (­such as mul­ti­ple sur­ger­ies). The epi­dem­i­ol­o­gy, his­to­ry, mech­a­nism, clin­i­cal symp­toms and ­signs, and diag­no­sis of ­latex aller­gy are pre­sent­ed brief­ly. The sub­ject of ­this ­review is to under­stand the impor­tance in reduc­ing the prev­a­lence of ­latex aller­gy: reduc­ing expo­sure, ­using appro­pri­ate ­work prac­tic­es, train­ing and edu­cat­ing work­ers, mon­i­tor­ing symp­toms and sub­sti­tut­ing non ­latex prod­ucts ­when appro­pri­ate.