Cutaneous drug reactions: clinical types and causative agents. A five-year survey of in-patients (1981-1985).

We collected a 5-year series of drug eruptions. There were 225 cases, 128 of them verified by a positive provocation test. The most common types of clinical reaction were fixed drug eruptions, exanthematous eruptions and urticarias. The drugs most often responsible for the eruptions were antimicrobial agents and antipyretic/anti-inflammatory analgesics. Comparing this series with our three previous series from the same hospital, the total number of drug eruptions proved to have decreased over the last 30 years. The main groups of drugs causing skin reactions have remained the same, but in recent years the proportion of sulphonamides has diminished.