Outcomes of Baked Milk and Egg Challenge in Cow's Milk and Hen's Egg Allergy: Can Tolerance Be Predicted with Allergen-Specific IgE and Prick-to-Prick Test?

BACKGROUND

Adding baked food into the diets of patients with cow's milk allergy (MA) and hen's egg allergy (EA) has several benefits.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to determine baked and unbaked food tolerance and evaluate the effectiveness of laboratory findings on the prediction of baked and unbaked food tolerance in patients with MA and EA.

METHODS

Clinical outcomes of the patients with MA and EA who had been exposed to oral food challenge with baked food were retrospectively analyzed.

RESULTS

Ninety-one patients were evaluated. The median age of the study group was 22 months. Forty-nine and 42 patients had IgE-mediated MA and EA, respectively. While all patients with EA tolerated baked egg, 24.5% patients with MA could not tolerate baked cow's milk (BM). In patients with MA, BM tolerance showed negative association with milk-specific IgE, skin prick test (SPT), and prick-to-prick test (PTP), and the PTP was the most significant parameter (sensitivity 83.8%, specificity 91.7% for PTP ≤7 mm). Negative association was seen between milk-specific IgE, SPT, PTP, and unbaked milk (UBM) tolerance, and PTP was the most significant parameter (sensitivity 100%, specificity 55% for PTP ≤4 mm). In patients with EA, at the end of 6 months of baked hen's egg (BE) consumption, scrambled egg tolerance showed negative association with egg white-specific IgE level, egg white SPT and PTP. Egg white PTP was the most significant parameter (sensitivity 82.4%, specificity 96.0% for PTP ≤5 mm).

CONCLUSION

Specific-IgE, SPT, and PTP should be kept in mind as parameters that can be used to predict tolerance to BM and BE for patients with MA and EA.