[Allergic diseases caused by pesticides: 3 case reports]. / Allergopatie da pesticidi: descrizione di tre casi.

Current pesticide exposure levels can induce a state of sensitization in exposed workers and only in exceptional situations cause severe intoxication. Three cases are reported--one suffering from urticaria/angio-edema, one from asthma and the other from oculo-rhinitis. Only one subject was atopical. The substances to which sensitization was found were Cynoxamil, Mancozeb, Thiophanate, Seccatutto for the first case, Paraquat for the second and Dodine for the third subject. The results suggest the need to extend allergological tests also to pesticides when workers, or subjects in any case exposed, show clinical signs with suspected immunological pathogenesis. Furthermore, in order to reduce the number of new cases of pesticide allergy, a more severe control also of subjects exposed to low doses is proposed.

Identification of causative chemicals of allergic contact dermatitis using a combination of patch testing in patients and chemical analysis. Application to cases from industrial rubber products.

3 cases of allergic contact dermatitis from industrial rubber products were investigated using a combination of patch testing in patients and chemical analysis of causative rubber products by gas chromatography (GC), GC-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Our studies revealed N-isopropyl-N'-phenyl-p-phenylenediamine (IPPD), a typical rubber allergen, as a causative chemical in a case from a brand of heavy-duty rubber gloves and a case from a black rubber ring for car manufacture, and zinc ethylphenyldithiocarbamate (ZEPC), a dithiocarbamate (DTC)-type accelerator, as a causative chemical in a case from a brand of rubber work gloves: both IPPD and ZEPC, which showed positive patch test reactions, were confirmed in the extracts of the causative rubber products by GC, GC-MS and/or HPLC.

[Cytogenetic activity of metabolites of pesticides representing different classes of chemical compounds]. / Issledovanie tsitogeneticheskoi aktivnosti nekotorykh metabolitov riada pestitsidov--predstavitelei neskol'kikh klassov khimicheskikh soedinenii.

The cytogenetic activity of some substances formed in agricultural plants during metabolism of pesticides of four classes of chemical compounds was studied in the culture of human peripheric blood lymphocytes. Metabolites were shown either to have mutagenic properties similar to those of the initial compounds (ziramtetramethylthiourea, both being mutagens; captan-phthalimide, both possessing no cytogenetic activity) or to be considerably transformed in comparison with them as a result of deactivation (benomile-MBC) or activation (betanal-MHPC) processes. The latter variant if being determined for the genetic hazard of the pesticide necessitates to take into account data on the mutagenic character of those metabolites which really might enter the human organism.