Characteristics of Patients with Food Allergy in Health Public Service

Backgroung: Food allergy is an important public health problem that affects children and adults and may be increasing in prevalence. Here we want to characterize the most frequent cases of food allergy that was made diagnostic in the new clinic of reference in allergy of the ambulatorial specialty center in a medium-sized city, important in attendance in public health.

Methods: Cross-sectional study, approved by the ethics committee from  CAAE 39525514.0.0000.5146, which included 200 patients treated at allergy service in the period from February to December 2013. Based on the consultations, we selected 16 patients involved in the diagnosis only of food allergy to be characterized. The instrument was a questionnaire prepared with this purpose and the data were collected through registers of medical records in which were evaluated some variables, including age, national origin, gender, chief complaint, clinical and laboratory diagnosis, and personal and family history of food allergies.

Results: The majority of patients with food allergy were male, corresponding to 10 patients (62.5%). The age group with the highest prevalence occurred in early childhood from 0 to 9 years (81.3%). The positivity was confirmed by skin prick test and serum specific IgE. Much of the observed complaints were rash, under the most common forms of clinical presentation for flushing, pruritus, urticaria, angioedema. The foods most commonly found to cause food allergies were cow's milk (37.5%) and egg white (12.5%). The patients were medicated and guided to specific nutritional caution and frequent return.

Conclusions: The prevalence of food allergy in our service was higher in the pediatric population and the main foods liable for these allergies were cow's milk and egg white.