Clinical evaluation for safety and usefulness of a protective cream 'Derma Barrier Uni'

We carried out a clinical study on safety and usefulness of Derma Barrier Uni (DBU), an antimicrobial skin protective cream which includes triclosan and makes a hydrophobic film in the stratum corneum. A 48-hour closed patch test was performed to evaluate its safety in the point of skin irritation to a total of 25 cases with dermatoses. The skin irritation index of DBU was 22.0 while those of petrolatum and distilled water were 14.0 and 18.0. The results showed that DBU is safe as a protective cream if it is used with proper topical medicaments. Then, a total of 31 cases with hand dermatitis started a clinical use test of DBU combined with their previous topical treatments. Of the 31 cases, 64.5% showed more than definite usefulness, and 77.4% showed more than some usefulness. The protectivity of DBU was superior in irritant contact dermatitis to allergic contact dermatitis. The percentages more than definite usefulness were 73.1% in the former and 20.0% in the latter. There were 4 cases who showed side effects. Of them 2 had allergic contact dermatitis while the other two had irritant contact dermatitis. Their symptoms and clinical manifestations were mild and improved soon after they stopped using DBU. Therefore we conclude that DBU is a safe and useful protectant for hand dermatitis used with topical medicaments.