Aquatic Dermatology by Domenico Bonamonte & Gianni Angelini

Author:Domenico Bonamonte & Gianni Angelini
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

A. gelatinosum is one of the oldest animals on the planet and looks like a yellow-green-brown alga (hence the name “algue pain d’épice” given to this animal by fishermen from Le Havre). It lives in colonies attached to hard substrates (rocks, shells, gravel, stones) in filaments about 20–30 cm long. Each colony consists of a large number of hermaphrodite individual creatures. These produce larvae that then attach to the same filament or to other substrates, creating new colonies. The animal feeds on plankton and proliferates during the summer season, whereas it becomes rarefied during the winter as from October. A. gelatinosum is widespread in the Northern Hemisphere, above the 45th parallel of north latitude, and especially in the Atlantic, the Baltic, the North Sea, the Arctic and the North Channel. It is also present in the Southern Hemisphere, in the coral zones of the Pacific, in Australian seas and more rarely in the Mediterranean and the Adriatic Sea.

E. pilosa builds a zooarium of white colonies that encrust various substrates. It is common in most of the seas in the Northern Hemisphere (the North Sea, the Channel, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean) at depths of between 15 and 18 m and it proliferates during the warm seasons [21].

Contact dermatitis from Bryozoans affects fishermen and is quite disabling. It was first observed in the North Sea (hence its first name “Dogger Bank Itch”, from the Dogger Bank area in the North Sea, given to the disease by Bonnevie but now no longer used) [48], and then reported in the eastern part of the Channel [49–51], in the Bay of the Seine [52, 53] and in Polynesia. This occupational eczema typically affecting fishermen manifests in the form of an allergic mechanism of delayed type, that recurs each summer after the initial sensitisation. The onset can occur even on first exposure. Fishermen come in contact with “sea moss” or “sea mats” when they pull their nets on board the boat and find them jumbled in with the fish; sometimes large quantities are present and are then thrown overboard. The clinical picture of the dermatitis features both dry, fissuring and acute, exudative lesions. The hands and forearms are first affected through direct contact with the Bryozoans; the face and neck may also be involved through airborne contact (airborne allergic contact dermatitis) with drops of sea water containing the allergenic material. With successive exposure, the dermatitis may become generalized and manifest as blistering, oedematous eruptions. Although recovery generally occurs within a few weeks of avoidance of the allergen, progression towards exogenic photosensitivity can also be observed, confirmed by photobiological exploration. The dermatitis may also become chronic, showing relapse even without exposure to Bryozoans (chronic actinic dermatitis) [54, 55]. The allergen responsible is 2-hydroxyethyl dimethylsulphoxonium in the case of A. gelatinosum [56, 57]. Patch and photopatch tests can be made with fragments of live Bryozoans just after harvesting, with seawater containing the allergen and with aqueous and acetonyl extracts of sea moss. Histological tests have shown intraepidermal spongiosis and a perivascular inflammatory dermal infiltrate [52].

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