A new occupational allergy due to frogs.

This report describes an extremely rare case of occupational allergy that developed in a frog handler. A 31-year-old female laboratory technician developed itching and urticaria one year after she began handling frogs and extracting their brains in the laboratory. Nine years later she noticed swelling of the right hand, stridor and dyspnea when she mistakenly injected her finger with a needle contaminated with extracts of frog brain. Specific IgE antibody to frog extracts was demonstrated by RAST and by P-K testing. However, no specific IgG antibody was found by agar gel diffusion or in heterologous PCA testing using guinea pigs. We suggest that allergic symptoms in this case were due to the development of Type I allergic reactivity to frog antigens.