2025/03/27 by Katharine Hopkins, Annarita Antelmi, Jakob Dahlin +6 · 1 citation
Medicine · Neuroscience · #Contact Dermatitis and Allergies #Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Research #Olfactory and Sensory Function Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.2340/actadv.v105.42463
crossref issued 2025/03/27 · crossref published 2025/03/27 · crossref published-online 2025/03/27 · openalex publication_date 2025/03/27 · crossref created 2025/03/28 · crossref deposited 2025/03/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/08/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Fibromyalgia is a chronic syndrome characterized by pain, fatigue, and cognitive disturbances. The increased prevalence of contact allergy to gold in individuals with fibromyalgia when compared with the general population has previously been described. Gold contact allergy can manifest as a systemic contact dermatitis, with cutaneous and extracutaneous manifestations presenting upon systemic administration of gold. This study aimed to establish whether gold allergy is of significance in the fibromyalgia population. Prior to patch testing with the Swedish baseline series and an extended dental series, 119 females with fibromyalgia answered questionnaires including details of past medical history, dental history, and previous cutaneous and mucous membrane intolerance to metals. Prevalence of allergy to gold sodium thiosulphate (2.0% and 5.0%) was 33.6% (40 individuals). There was a statistically significant overrepresentation of gold allergy among individuals who experienced cutaneous symptoms upon direct contact with gold (p = 0.010). Contact allergy to gold was more frequent among patients with oral symptoms (p = 0.024). This study demonstrates concordance between reported cutaneous symptomatology related to gold exposure and gold allergy in the fibromyalgia population. Whether individuals with oral symptoms and gold allergy have objective oral clinical findings and relevant gold exposure is the focus of ongoing study.