The European Surveillance System of Contact Allergies (ESSCA): results of patch testing the standard series, 2004

Background The European Surveillance System on Contact Allergies (ESSCA) began in 2001 as project funded by a European Union grant to monitor and evaluate contact sensitization (CS) based on clinical data collected by participating European dermatology departments. Objectives ESSCA aims to detect trends in CS in an international patch test population, monitoring the frequency of CS to (standard series) allergens, evaluating the effectiveness of intervention (e.g. governmental regulations) and improving standardization of the patch test procedure on an international level. Methods In 2004, 31 ESSCA dermatology departments in II European countries collected patch test results and medical histories of patients tested with the European Standard Series (ESS) or a local standard allergen series using the multilingual Winalldat/ESSCA database, the German Winalldat/Information Network of Departments of Dermatology (IVDK) database or a locally created database including the items of the ESSCA 'minimal data set'. Data were sent to the ESSCA data centre where they were imported, pooled, examined for quality and subsequently analysed.