Methods: Literature review and case description.
Results: We assessed a 36 years old female with a history of palpebral and lips oedema, flaking and pruritus, for two months, especially during her work. She worked in pharmaceutical industry and was referred to our outpatient because she had noticed worsening after contact with residues contained in captopril packaging during its manipulation. She had improved when had no contact with the packages. She was treated with topical corticosteroids and oral antihistamines. We performed contact delayed reading test (patch test) with captopril in the concentration of 10%, resulting papules, vesicles and swelling at the application site. In addition, there was a negative reaction standard test series. We told her to avoid new exposures to this drug and others with cross reaction.
Conclusions: Adverse skin reactions to anti-hypersensitive drugs are not uncommon, eczema and rashes usually being caused by thiazides, amiloride or beta-blocking drugs. It is well known that ACE inhibitors elicit angioedema. However, there have been few reports of eczematous skin reactions to ACE inhibitors and all have been due to captopril intake. We reported a patient having occupational contact dermatitis to captopril through skin contact. Although an uncommon event, captopril may elicit eczematous allergic reactions which can be diagnosed by patch-testing.