Practical Contact Dermatitis: A Handbook for the Practitioner

Abstract

Jere Guin's objective as editor of<i>Practical Contact Dermatitis: A Handbook for the Practitioner</i>is to furnish clinicians and patients with useful information about contact dermatitis. The book beautifully meets this goal with chapters that are well written, easy to understand, and, for the most part, concise enough to minimize the tediousness and information overload that is possible when dealing with the complex nature of allergic contact dermatitis. The book is divided into four main sections. The first deals with the basics: definitions, mechanisms of irritant vs allergic contact dermatitis, and how to perform photopatch and patch tests (using both standard and nonstandard allergens). Some of the information in these beginning chapters is a bit redundant, probably a reflection of the multiauthored nature of this book, and could have been edited more stringently.