Factors associated with the development of oral allergy syndrome: A retrospective questionnaire survey of Japanese university students.

BACKGROUND

Oral allergy syndrome (OAS) is an IgE-mediated food allergy. Ingestion of causative antigens leads to the development of local symptoms such as numbness of the oral mucosa in most cases and anaphylaxis in a few cases. The prevalence of OAS including in healthy people has not been investigated. Thus, we conducted a questionnaire survey of Japanese university students.

METHODS

We conducted a cross-sectional study of 2688 first-year students using a questionnaire survey in marksheet format and examined the epidemiological characteristics of OAS.

RESULTS

Only 2.7% of students were aware of the term "oral allergy syndrome". A total of 143 (5.3%) students had OAS. There were significant associations between OAS and other allergic diseases including allergic rhinitis (AR) (OR: 3.8, 95% CI: 2.7-5.5), atopic dermatitis (AD) (OR: 4.6, 95%CI: 3.3-6.6), and bronchial asthma (BA) (OR: 3.0, 95%CI: 2.0-4.5). The onset age of OAS showed bimodal peaks at 0 and 10 years, and the latter peak coincided with the peak onset age of AR.

CONCLUSIONS

Awareness of OAS was low in our study, which will make it difficult to treat properly and prevent its development. This survey confirmed the association between OAS and other allergic diseases, especially AR, which suggests that OAS is involved in the allergic march. A novel finding was that sensitization to antigens for OAS occurred around the same time as sensitization to antigens for AR. These results will help medical professionals diagnose OAS and develop lifestyle guidelines to prevent OAS-related symptoms such as anaphylaxis.