? BHT ALLERGY ======================== From: Reviva@aol.com Walter: This posting was unbelievably apropos. A well established patient of mine, with celtic skin, had had numerous AK's over the years treated by me. I finally convinced him to try a course of 5FU about 6 weeks ago. His reaction was as to be expected and quite severe after three weeks. Because of the dirth of samples from drug companies in these days of managed care, a tangent that I won't go on to right now, the ONLY samples I had in the office were HALOG OINTMENT. I gave him some and after 24 hours he called saying his skin was worse, burning, stinging and "on fire". I told him it couldn't be the HALOG OINTMENT because I have never before seen any reactions to HALOG OINTMENT, suggested it was probably just a continuation of the 5FU reaction and just too early for the HALOG to be working maximally, and told him to continue the HALOG OINTMENT for 2-3 more days. Well, apparently it continued to get worse. Instead of calling me or coming in to see me, he went somewhere else and was told he was allergic to HALOG OINTMENT, it was stopped and switched to WESTCORT OINTMENT and he is slowly improving (but VERY angry at me). I've used HALOG products since my residency and have never seen a problem. Has anyone else ever seen this problem? How common are allergic reactions to HALOG PRODUCTS? Jeff Marmelzat, M.D. ===================== From: Donald Belsito The NACDG has been screening w/ BHT and BHA for 2 yrs. now. Allergic reactions are extraordinarily rare.Of course, your nurse may be the rare bird. However, my hunch is that retin-A is irritating while the Renova is not. Perhaps he is allergic to the steroid. The NACDG's data shows that 2-3% of pts. patch tested have steroid allergies (Am J Contact Dermatitis, 6:160-165, 1995). If so, with continued use of Westcort, he'll probably start reacting to that. He needs patch testing -- pronto!