Some aspects of the allergy to cow's milk. Morphological alterations of the jejunal mucosa.

Forty-four patients were studied at the Allergology and Pediatric Outpatient Services of the "Centro Habana" Pediatric Hospital. Allergy to cow's milk was demonstrated in these children by means of a detailed medical history, suppression diet and reexposition, lactose tolerance test, intradermal skin tests with casein extracts and the remaining proteins of cow's milk; finally, a careful study of the jejunal mucosas by means of biopsy was carried out, according to Townley and Barnes' method with a Crosby capsule. The skin reactivity was evident in children with allergy to cow's milk with tested extracts, mainly casein; in the control group this result was scarce or nil. Likewise, it was verified that there are morphological changes in the jejunal mucosa of children with allergy to cow's milk; these changes consist of partial atrophy of the villi, increase in the cell-infiltrate of the lamina propria and patchy areas. Our results are compared with the studies carried out by other authors and were statistically assessed.