engleski

CLINICAL RELEVANCE OD CAST TEST IN THE 1 DIAGNOSIS OF FOOD ADDITIVES' ALLERGY

Allergy to food additives is often serious diagnostic and therapy problem because the mechanisms by which food additives affect the immune mechanisms are poorly understood. These reactions are described as intolerance or pseudoallergy and are not IgE-mediated. At present, detection of food additives allergy is still difficult and requires an adequate clinical history and more sensitive and specific in vivo and in vitro tests. The aim of the study was to investigate the diagnostic value of cellular antigen stimulation test (CAST) in detection of hypersensitivity reaction to food additives.We tested 45 patients with positive history of hypersensitivity reactions to food additives (sodium salicylate, sodium benzoate, potassium metabisulfite and tartrazine).Clinical symptoms included urticaria/angioedema (23 patients), medicamentous exanthema (6 patients) and dermatitis (16 patients): Sulfidoleukotrienes (sLT) quantification was carried out by CAST-ELISA after in vitro peripheral blood leukocytes stimulation with food additives. The results higher than the cut-off range value (sodium salicylate 120 pg/mL, sodium benzoate. 90 pg/mL, potassium metabisulfite 40 pg/mL and tartrazine 120 pg/ml) were cc};nsidered positive. Our preliminary results demonstrate that CAST was positive1 in 7% (3/44) of atients with allergy to sodium salicylate, 27% (12/45) of patients to podium benzoate, 35% (13/37) of patients to potassium.metabisulfite and 27{;% (12/44) of patients to tartrazine. Our results show that increased sulfidoleukotrlene production was observed with different frequency by any off the food additive te~ted. In vitro measurement of sLT production may be helpful or identifyng some patients with allergy to food additive, especially to potassium metabisulfite.

Food additives allergy; CAST; urticaria

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