Occupational Contact Dermatitis in UV-Curable and Vat-Photopolymerisation Workflows: Exposure Routes, Sensitisation, Diagnosis and Prevention

Occupational contact dermatitis is a practical failure mode in workflows that handle uncured photo-curable materials. Direct 3D-printing case reports now document allergic contact dermatitis associated with (meth)acrylate-containing printing resins and with epoxy-resin chemistry, while recent UV-printing evidence also demonstrates an airborne allergic-contact-dermatitis route. Historical occupational studies in dental personnel and printing workers show that acrylic monomers can become clinically relevant sensitisers and that safety data sheets may not reveal the compounds implicated by patch testing or chemical analysis. Barrier protection is likewise not a binary property: controlled studies show that methacrylate-containing materials can permeate some medical gloves and that breakthrough time varies strongly with glove, monomer and test system. ER-93 therefore treats prevention as a task-specific control problem: identify the handled material state and credible contact route, minimise uncontrolled contact using the hierarchy of controls, select barriers for the actual chemical/task combination, maintain contamination and hygiene controls, and refer suspected occupational disease for professional diagnosis. Patch testing and interpretation of clinical relevance remain clinical procedures; this review does not prescribe self-testing. The paper is deliberately separated from ER-91 evidence-density/SDS interpretation, ER-92 impurity and residual-composition attribution, ER-94 intrinsic monomer structure-hazard relationships, ER-95 photoinitiator substitution, and ER-06/ER-86 finished-device biological and extractables/leachables qualification.