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JACI Highlights - July 2008
Consumption of heat-treated egg by children allergic or sensitized to egg may affect the natural course of egg allergy: hypothesis generating observations
George N Konstantinou, MD, MSc, Stavroula Giavi, MD, Aleksandra Kalobatsou, MD, Emilia Vassilopoulou, PhD, Nikolaos Douladiris, MD, Photini Saxoni-Papageorgiou, MD, PhD, Nikolaos G Papadopoulos, MD, PhD
One of the most frequent food allergies in infants is to hen's egg. Usually, this allergy is outgrown by the time the child goes to school, however until the allergy has been overcome, the only way to currently manage it is to completely eliminate eggs from the child's diet. Of course, accidental ingestion can still occur, causing serious effects in some children. In an upcoming issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Konstantinou and colleagues report on their work with egg-allergic children and propose a theory for progressively introducing altered egg proteins in increasing frequency so that children lose their egg sensitivity. Egg allergens can be broken down by heat (for instance, by baking them in a cake) to a state where they are less potent in a small, altered dose. The researchers found that by slowly and steadily increasing the amount of egg in this form, most of their patients came to tolerate the egg allergen without an allergic reaction. This method may help egg-allergic children by accelerating the natural course of developing tolerance to egg proteins. The authors caution that additional study in the form of controlled trials is needed to confirm their hypothesis.
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