Presentation: Natural History of Food Allergy in Childhood -3 Years' Follow up of Pediatric Food Allergy Patients- (World Allergy Congress)

Tuesday, 6 December 2011

Poster Hall (Cancún Center)

Miho Hasegawa , Department of Allergy, Sagamihara National Hospital Clinical Research Center for Allergy and Rheumatology, Sagamihara, Japan

Takatsugu Komata, MD , Department of Pediatrics, Sagamihara National Hospital, Sagamihara, Japan

Takanori Imai, MD, PhD , Department of Pediatrics, Sagamihara National Hospital, Sagamihara, Japan

Kiyotake Ogura, MD , Department of Pediatrics, Sagamihara National Hospital, Sagamihara, Japan

Makiko Goto, MD , Department of Pediatrics, Sagamihara National Hospital, Sagamihara, Japan

Katsuhito Iikura, MD , Department of Pediatrics, Sagamihara National Hospital, Sagamihara, Japan

Tomohiro Utsunomiya, MD , Department of Pediatrics, Sagamihara National Hospital, Sagamihara, Japan

Sakura Satou, MD , Department of Allergy, Sagamihara National Hospital Clinical Research Center for Allergy and Rheumatology, Sagamihara, Japan

Morimitsu Tomikawa, MD , Department of Pediatrics, Sagamihara National Hospital, Sagamihara, Japan

Akinori Shukuya, MD, PhD , Department of Pediatrics, Sagamihara National Hospital, Sagamihara, Japan

Motohiro Ebisawa, MD, PhD , Department of Allergy, Sagamihara National Hospital Clinical Research Center for Allergy and Rheumatology, Sagamihara, Japan

Background:

Food allergy (FA) is prevalent among children, however, natural history of FA is not fully clarified

Methods:

We sought to investigate the natural course of childhood FA. To follow up the transition of same patients, we collected clinical records of patients with 3 years’ interval from 2008 to 2010.

Four hundred ninety-one patients (male 321 and female 170) were recruited to this study.

Results:

The onset of FA was at the age of 5m +/- 1y3m (mean+/-SD). The clinical type at the onset was with infantile atopic eczema (84.1%), and followed by immediate reactions without eczema (14.9%). The initial diagnosis age was 10m +/- 1y4m, and the first visit to our department was 1y11m +/- 2y5m. Current age of the patients was 7y5m +/- 2y11m, and 444 patients (90.4%) had experienced immediate reactions. The number of eliminated foods decreased from 2.4 +/- 1.5 items/patient (n=1191) to 1.9 +/- 1.6 items/patient (n=926) in 3 years. The ratio of stopping elimination of major allergens was 35.9% (121/337 patients) for hen’s egg, 25.6% (52/203 patients) for cow’s milk and 47.8% (44/92 patients) for wheat. Fourteen patients (2.9%) had developed new food allergies, and 2 of them had experienced anaphylaxis by tree nuts. Newly diagnosed allergens were only 0.1 +/- 0.3 items/patient (n=32), and nuts (n=6) and peanut (n=5) were the most frequent. Seventy-nine patients (16.1%) had developed complete remission of FA in 3 years, and 21.5% of them (17 patients) had never developed immediate reactions.

Conclusions:

Most of pediatric FA started during infancy with atopic eczema, and developing tolerance is expected with aging. In some patients, persistent FA is troublesome for school age children.

3106 Natural History of Food Allergy in Childhood -3 Years' Follow up of Pediatric Food Allergy Patients-