Quote"Sesame allergies have probably increased more than any other type of food allergy over the past 10 to 20 years," says Robert Wood, MD, director of the division of pediatric allergy and immunology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
"They're now clearly one of the six or seven most common food allergens in the U.S.," he tells WebMD.
Quote"It's remarkably common to see sesame allergy and to see severe reactions to it," says Robert Wood, MD, chief of pediatric allergy and immunology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. Wood estimates it's the fourth or fifth most common allergy in his patient population of 4,000 kids with severe food allergies.
QuoteThe authors reported results of 701 challenges over the 22 month period. 18.8% of the challenges were positive, i.e. elicited a reaction. The challenged foods were common food allergens (in descending order of frequency: peanut, tree nuts, egg, milk, soy, fish, sesame, shellfish, wheat, and others).
QuoteRuchi Gupta, MD, from Northwestern University Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago
QuoteFormal diagnoses were most frequently confirmed by oral food challenge for milk allergy (22.4%), soy (19.2%), peanut (16.1%), wheat (15.5%), shellfish (14.4%), tree nut (12.6%), egg (12.4%), sesame (11.2%), and fin fish (9.1%).
QuoteMethods: Retrospective chart review of all children undergoing OFC to any food excluding milk, egg, peanut, wheat and soy from 2004-2012.
QuotePatients aged 1-18 years (median 6) underwent 366 OFCs. Challenged foods included tree nuts (36.6%), meats (15.8%), seeds (11.7%), shellfish (9%), fish (6.8%), fruits and vegetables (6%), grains excluding wheat (5.7%), legumes excluding peanut (4.9%), and miscellaneous foods (3.2%). 90.7% of patients had other FA, 71.6% asthma, and 48.1% eczema. Overall, 81.1% of children passed OFC with similar pass rates within each food category.