Statistical Characteristics of Patients Reporting
for Clinical Check-up with Suspected Food Allergy

Györgyi Pátkai 1, Kristóf Nékám2, and Beáta Székely-Szilágyi1

1 Department of Canning Technology, Faculty of Food Science, Szent István University, Szeged, Hungary
2 Department of Clinical Immunology and Allergology of the Hospital of the Hospitaller Brothers of St John of God in Buda, Budapest, Hungary

Corresponding author: Györgyi Pátkai
    Department of Canning Technology
    Faculty of Food Science
    Szent István University,
    Ménesi út 45.
    H-1118 Budapest, Hungary
    Telephone: +36-1-3726-212
    Fax number: +36-1-3726-327
    E-mail address: gypatkai@omega.kee.hu

CEJOEM 2002, Vol.8. No.2–3.:188–193

Key words:
Food allergens, symptoms, dietary habits, cross reactivity, actual and presumed allergy

Abstract:
The data of 3000 patients at the Department of Clinical Immunology and Allergology of the Hospital of the Hospitaller Brothers of St John of God in Buda, Budapest, were analyzed, with the aim of determining the percentage of patients with proven food allergy, the distribution of patients with suspected food allergy according to their age, sex and symptoms, and to study some factors influencing food allergy. Most frequent types of food allergy resulting from cross reactivity with pollens were also investigated. The main results of the survey were the following: in the years 2000–2001 only in 4.3% of the 3000 patients being checked up in the Hospital had an actual food allergy been proven. The predominant majority of the patients suffering from food allergy (76%) were women. The age of the majority of women having food allergy was between 20–40 years while men suffering from the same disease were younger, mostly 20–30 years old. In 81% of the patients admitted with suspected food allergy, the diagnosis was proven by double blind placebo-controlled food challenges (DBPCFC). Significantly more women judged their symptoms correctly, men were more frequently wrong. In accordance with the literature in the present survey it was found that tomato, soybean and celery are the main food allergens of vegetable origin in the Hungarian adult population, cross-reacting with pollen structures.

Received:  3 July 2002
Accepted:  25 November 2002
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