Newer and More Specific Blood Test for Peanut Allergies

Filed in archive Allergy: Diagnostics and Treatment on January 30, 2010

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Has your child tested positive for peanut allergies on standard blood or skin-prick test? Apparently, there's a chance your child isn't actually peanut allergic, based on the stats from a new study.

According to their survey, the majority of children considered peanut-sensitized on the basis of standard tests do not have peanut allergy. In fact, only 7 of the 79 peanut-sensitized children showed objective symptoms during the food challenge.

The problem is, food challenge is too risky and time consuming for use in routine diagnostics. The authors suggest a new type of blood test that may be more precise than standard IgE tests. The technique, called component-resolved diagnostics (CRD), involves exposing blood samples to specific, purified peanut proteins and measuring the IgE antibody response.

Hopefully, researchers can come up with a more reliable, more precise diagnostic tool. As a parent of a (confirmed) peanut allergic child, I know how life is like with peanut allergies, and food allergy in general. If you've been living as if you have peanut allergies when you actually don't have the condition, imagine all the stress and axieties you could have been spared!