IMMEDIATE AND DELAYED ALLERGY TO NICKEL WITH CONTACT URTICARIA, RHINITIS, ASTHMA AND CONTACT-DERMATITIS

A 27-year-old woman had for 2 years performed manual grinding of metal castings that contained nickel. She had previously had allergic conta ct dermatitis from nickel but started to get contact urticaria, rhinit is and asthmatic attacks at work. The symptoms disappeared at weekends and on holiday. Scratch chamber tests, open tests, specific IgE deter minations (RAST), and RAST-inhibition test indicated that she had deve loped an IgE-mediated allergy to nickel; the bronchial provocation rea ction with NiSO4 was, however, a late one. Patch tests confirmed her a llergic contact dermatitis to be caused by nickel. This is the first p atient, to the best of our knowledge, reported to have developed aller gic contact dermatitis, allergic contact urticaria, rhinitis and asthm a from nickel.