Title of project

Contact Dermatitis caused by Diabetes Devices in Children and Adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes

Abstract

The use of diabetes devices in the care of persons with diabetes is increasing, especially in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes, where the use of diabetes devices enables better glycemic outcome, quality of life and flexible lifestyle. Unfortunately, many do evolve skin problems, where we have shown that a skin care program could prevent some of the reactions, but unfortunately not the contact dermatitis (CD) seen in 10-33%. The CD can be investigated further with respect to al-lergic or irritative components by patch testing but both prevention and treatment of CD caused by diabetes devices have not been investigated yet. The skin barrier of non-lesional skin have been found not impaired in persons with type 1 diabetes, but the consequence of diabetes devices to the skin barrier of insertion sites are not investigated. The aim of present study is therefore to: Describe contact dermatitis caused by diabetes devices by patch test results, allergens, discontinuation of devices, and handling of contact dermatitis in clinical practice, secondly to investigate skin barrier as a function of occlusion time, skin resting time and type of patch and thirdly to explore new meth-ods for prevention and treatment of contact dermatitis.

The methods include a study systematically to describe 8-years of referral to dermatologic depart-ment with indication contact dermatitis caused by diabetes devices based on patch testing results and medical files and a randomized controlled trial with two arms to investigate whether a silicone-glycerol patch underneath the diabetes device can prevent CD from diabetes devices. In the second study, skin barrier measures will also be collected to describe influence of occlusion time, rotation practices and types of patches on the skin barrier.

The proposed project is therefore able to change clinical practice with respect to prevention of CD but also to appeal to the device manufacturers which allergens to avoid and which recommenda-tions on design of infusion sets and sensors when it comes to material etcetera that could help decrease the prevalence of CD.