• level of skin irritation as determined by visual reading, skin redness (color measurement), skin barrier integrity (transepidermal water loss measurement) and skin hydration (capacitance measurement) [ Time Frame: End of treatment and summary measure (Area under the curve) of consecutive measurements at visit every other day for 10 days ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
  

Drug: clobetasol
0.5 mg Clobetasol propionate (0.5 mg/g) ointment applied twice daily for 10 consecutive days
Drug: triamcinolone acetonide
0.5 mg ointment twice daily for 10 consecutive days
Drug: tacrolimus
0.5 mg tacrolimus ointment(0.1%) twice daily for 10 consecutive days
Drug: glycerol
0.5 mg glycerol ointment (20%) twice daily for 10 consecutive days
Drug: vehicle ointment (paraffin oil/soft white paraffin)
0.5 mg vehicle ointment twice daily for 10 consecutive days

Irritant contact dermatitis (ICD) is a frequent cause of hand eczema and occupational skin disease. One way to study ICD is to expose healthy volunteer skin to chemicals and evaluate the skin response. Because different chemicals act differently on the skin, the use of different skin irritants may provide more information than relying on one irritant only. In this study the two commonly used irritants sodium lauryl sulphate and nonanoic acid are exposed to the skin in a cumulative wash test. Treatment of ICD has classically involved topical steroids and/or emollients. However, the outcome is variable with some patients being very refractory to this regimen. This study was designed to investigate the relative efficacy of the steroids triamcinolone acetonide and clobetasol, the topical immune modulator tacrolimus, a 20% Glycerol ointment compared with an inert ointment vehicle on experimentally induced irritated skin.