Sodium hydroxymethylglycinate: a potential formaldehyde-releasing preservative in child products.

摘要

Precis We report on three children with allergic contact dermatitis from formaldehyde who had clinically relevant exposure to sodium hydroxymethylglycinate, a relatively unknown formaldehyde-releasing preservative found in many child care products marketed as "natural" or "organic" products. Discussion Formaldehyde and formaldehyde-releasing preservatives (FRPs) were recently identified as significant contact sensitizers in children. Allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) from FRPs is partly due to their widespread use in numerous commercially available personal hygiene products. Well-known FRPs include quaternium-15, diazolidinylurea, dimethylol dimethyl (DMDM) hydantoin, imidazolidiny-lurea, and 2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol. Another FRP, sodium hydroxymethylglycinate (SHMG), may be an underrecognized source contributing to formaldehyde sensitization in children. We report three pediatric cases (summarized in Table 1) in which SHMG exposure was the only exposure to a formaldehyde detected and in which improvement with avoidance of the products was observed.