%0 Journal Article
%T Sensitization to cereals and peanut evidenced by skin prick test and specific IgE in food-tolerant, grass pollen allergic patients
%A Maria Martens
%A Heidi J Schnoor
%A Hans-J£¿rgen Malling
%A Lars K Poulsen
%J Clinical and Translational Allergy
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/2045-7022-1-15
%X 70 subjects (41 females; mean age 32 years) and 20 healthy controls (13 females; mean age 24 years) were tested by open food challenge (OFC) with cereals and peanut. SPT and sIgE both with Immulite£¿ (Siemens) and ImmunoCAP£¿ (Phadia) to grass and birch pollen, cereals, peanut and bromelain were performed.Of the 65 OFC-negative subjects 29-46% (SPT, depending on cut-off), 20% (Immulite) and 38% (ImmunoCAP) had positive results to one or more of the foods tested. Controls were negative in all tests. Cross-reactive carbohydrate determinants (CCD) as evidenced by reaction to bromelain could explain only a minority of the measured IgE-sensitizations.Grass pollen allergic patients with documented food tolerance to cereals and peanut may express significant sensitization. False-positive cereal or peanut allergy diagnoses may be a quantitatively important problem both in routine clinical work and epidemiological studies.Wheat IgE-mediated allergy manifests itself as food allergy [1] and as occupational inhalant allergy (Baker's asthma) [2] and identical allergens seem to be responsible in both allergies, although their relative importance differ [3,4]. It is a general clinical experience that also patients without these diseases may display positive skin test or immunoglobulin E (IgE) towards wheat and the cross-reactivity between grass pollen and cereals may have an impact on the specificity of the diagnostic tests [1,5-7].In a non-published retrospective study performed in our department we found a large number of positive reactions to cereals in specific IgE (sIgE) tests in grass pollen allergic patients claiming to tolerate cereals, when interviewed by telephone. Also Jones et al. [8] found clinically non-relevant reactions to cereals in grass pollen allergic patients. Low specificity of cereal-related diagnostic tests is a particular problem since grass pollen allergy is very prevalent compared to true cereal allergy, but studies of grass pollen allergic subjects with c
%K Cereals
%K cross-reaction
%K diagnosis
%K food challenge
%K grass pollen allergy
%U http://www.ctajournal.com/content/1/1/15