Molecular diagnosis of peanut allergy.

Susan M H Chan, Catalina Dumitru, Victor Turcanu

King's College London, King's Health Partners, MRC and Asthma-UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma, Department of Asthma, Allergy and Respiratory Science, Guy's Hospital, London, SE1 9RT, UK.

Expert review of molecular diagnostics 2012 Nov

filter terms:

Peanut allergy prevalence has increased in developed countries over the last few decades in the frame of the allergy epidemics, currently affecting 1-2% of children. While less frequent in developing countries, its prevalence is rising as these countries adopt a more westernized lifestyle. There is no curative treatment for peanut allergy at present so patient management relies on peanut avoidance, which requires an accurate diagnosis. Recent progress in peanut allergy diagnosis was made with the introduction of component resolved diagnosis that allows the assessment of IgE specific to individual peanut allergens. Component-resolved diagnosis needs to be interpreted in the context of clinical data but overall increases the diagnostic accuracy, as described in the typical cases that we present. Novel diagnostic tools have been proposed recently, such as the basophil activation test, mRNA expression and resonance magnetic evaluation of biomarkers.

Citation

Susan M H Chan, Catalina Dumitru, Victor Turcanu. Molecular diagnosis of peanut allergy. Expert review of molecular diagnostics. 2012 Nov;12(8):879-91