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People with latex allergies can use deproteinized latex condoms safely, according to a study presented Sunday during the American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology conference in San Diego.

The research was conducted by David Levy M.D., at the Hopital Tenon in Paris. Researchers recruited 19 people who, through blood tests, had confirmed allergies to latex. Each of the volunteers had suffered reactions in the past, including skin rashes, watery eyes and respiratory distress.

The volunteers, aged 21 to 60, agreed to use 10 deproteinized latex condoms in a six-week period and keep records of any reactions. None suffered any.

“The results of the study are pretty straightforward,” Levy said. “What’s important about this study is that most physicians probably don’t ask patients about latex allergies and condoms, so we hope this makes physicians more aware of the problem.”

Levy added that women who are allergic to latex will also benefit by the findings of his study.

Until this study was completed, there had been only one previous report on the frequency of allergic reactions to latex condoms, done in 1989, Levy said.

The results of two other studies on latex allergy also were presented.

The first, conducted by Canadian researcher Susan Tarlo, summarized the results and cost of an allergy-reduction program at the Toronto Western Hospital in Ontario. In the past decade, reactions to latex gloves had become an increasing problem for hospital employees. Some had experienced life-threatening shock when they used the latex gloves. Two nurses had quit due to the hospital’s inability to accommodate their allergy, and five submitted claims for occupational asthma due to contact with latex gloves.

As a result, the Toronto hospital instituted an education and screening program, then later provided sensitive employees with low-protein, low-powder gloves. The substitution program caused the incidence of allergic reaction to decrease dramatically from a peak of 45 in 1994, to only one case per year in 1997, 1998 and 1999.

Although the low-protein, low powder gloves are more expensive than the regular latex gloves, the substitution program has actually saved the hospital money.

“The study looked at the cost of changing gloves versus the cost of 1 percent of the hospital staff becoming fully disabled,” Tarlo said, “and it was more cost-effective to substitute the low-protein, low-powder gloves for those that needed them.”

Consolidating the purchase of gloves with one manufacturer also helps save money, she added.

The hospital in the second study took the provision of latex-free gloves for its employees one step further. The University of Maryland Medical System in Baltimore recently adopted a program that provides latex-free gloves to all employees
“We estimated that it cost between $1 million and $100 million if we couldn’t get workers back,” said lead researcher Mary Bollinger, D.O., and we looked at what we were losing in workman’s comp.”

After screening nearly 1,800 employees, researchers found that 7.6 percent were classified as latex-sensitive. (It is estimated that about 1.5 percent of the general population is latex-sensitive.)

The cost of the glove-conversion program was initially estimated to be more than $100,000, but investigators found that it cost more to pay employees who lost work time because of reactions to the latex gloves. The hospital now has a mandatory screening program for all new employees.

“No one else I know of is doing mandatory screening,” Bollinger said. “Other hospitals are putting these employees out, but we’re accommodating them.”