High rates of food allergy testing in infants

Tuesday, 15 February 2011 09:57

A large-scale study including all 5920 children aged 0-4 years in the province of South Karelia, Finland has looked at the rate of food allergy testing in infants. The researchers found a total of 5849 food allergy tests had been performed on 961 children.

The incidence of testing was 30% higher in boys than in girls and twofold higher among the offspring of parents who reportedly had some allergic manifestation.

The authors concluded that given the large proportion of children subjected to food allergy testing in their early years, there is a need to evaluate the financial burden of such testing and to improve current testing practices.

Reference: Pyrhönen et al. 2011. Pediatric Allergy and Immunology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1399-3038.2011.01140.x.