QuoteIn summary, the study demonstrated the likely importance of a very deliberate and detailed discussion about the risks and benefits of the test, addressing biases such as considering whether food is important or not and issues about risk and fear of reactions. Patients should have lots of questions, and their doctors should be prepared to answer them.
QuoteJoin Dr. Irene J. Mikhail and Kids With Food Allergies for this free webinar
QuoteDr. Mikhail, an allergist and immunologist at Nationwide Children's in Columbus, Ohio
QuoteOFC not intended to establish "severity" or threshold, simply confirm or refute clinical hypersensitivity #EAACI2015
Quote from: LinksEtc on May 27, 2015, 11:06:34 AM
1) My opinion is that allergists need to understand labeling rules & limitations in order to best advise allergy families on avoidance. Especially for the non-top8, the risk of reaction should be balanced with quality of life & family mental health considerations (imo). Unless medically necessary, pls don't set almost impossibly high avoidance standards.
QuoteIn summary, I would suggest your patient continue to eat sesame seed but avoid hummus.
QuoteWith the assistance of colleagues at the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, he decided to investigate why parents sometimes weren't taking up the offer for a food challenge – considered the most definitive test for food allergy.
QuoteFood allergy health-related quality of life (FAQOL)
QuoteOf 54 children who had a food challenge between September 2012 and February 2013, 25 were positive (allergic) and 29 were negative (nonallergic). FAQOL improved significantly from 2 months prechallenge to 2 months postchallenge for both groups, but began to decrease at 6 months postchallenge in allergic patients.
Quotecertainly it has long been known that false-negative office-based food challenges occur. I have personally seen them. So knowledge of such false-negative reactions should be factored in when you assess the risk/benefit ratio of performing an oral food challenge.
Quote
A total of 334 challenges on 276 patients were reviewed. The majority of challenges, 253 (76%), were negative. There were 4 cases (1.6%) in which patients developed symptoms consistent with an IgE-mediated allergic reaction at home to the challenged foods after appearing to pass an open-OFC: 2 were to soy, 1 to egg, and 1 to cashew. Time to symptom exacerbations following the negative challenges ranged from 6 hours to 5 months.
QuoteThere are a number of causes for false positive and false negative challenge results
QuoteAmong other reasons listed, fears of persistence of allergies, with recurrent pruritus or non-specific skin rashes after eating the food, were reported in 12.7% of the total number of questionnaires.
QuoteThere are circumstances when a child can become re-sensitized to the allergen even after passing the initial challenge. In addition, a few studies suggest that up to 6 percent of children who pass an oral food challenge may experience a return of their symptoms up to six months or a year after the challenge. To be on the safe side, many allergists advise parents to continue to closely monitor their child's food intake and to take precautions regarding reintroducing problem foods for about six months after the challenge.
QuoteWood also recommends that those children who do eat concentrated peanut products frequently carry epinephrine injections for at least one year after passing an oral food challenge
QuoteIn my academic clinical practice, SPTs have more clinical relevance than sIgE. It is not uncommon for patients with a negative sIgE (lower than 0.35) and a positive SPT (larger than 3 mm) to have a clinical reaction during food challenges. It is very unusual for a patient with with a negative SPT to have a reaction during a food challenge.
QuoteTo examine the accuracy of the ratio of sIgE to total IgE ("Ratio") in predicting the outcome of challenges performed to confirm the development of tolerance.
QuoteThere are clearly circumstances in which the skin test and serum IgE level do not "agree" with one another, and in these instances, one must make a clinical judgement on the risk of challenge in conjunction with the patient's/parents' wishes.
QuoteWe use the term "pass," but not the word "fail" to describe results. Years ago I learned how negative the word fail can be from a teen who felt she "did not fail, but earned a C-."