HOUSTON – The annual incidence of recurrent anaphylaxis in children was 29% in the first prospective study to examine the issue.
“That rate is higher than previously reported in retrospective studies,” Dr. Andrew O’Keefe said at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.
He presented a study conducted as part of the Cross-Canada Anaphylaxis Registry (C-CARE). In the prospective study, the parents of 266 children who presented with anaphylaxis to two Montreal hospitals were contacted annually thereafter and asked about subsequent allergic reactions.
The parents of 96 children participated. Twenty-five of these 96 children experienced a total of 42 recurrent episodes of anaphylaxis, with an annual recurrence rate of 29%. Three-quarters of recurrences were categorized by investigators as moderate in severity, meaning they entailed crampy abdominal pain, recurrent vomiting, diarrhea, a barky cough, stridor, hoarseness, difficulty swallowing, shortness of breath, and/or moderate wheezing.
A striking study finding was that an epinephrine autoinjector was utilized prior to arrival at the hospital in only 52% of recurrences. That’s serious underutilization, commented Dr. O’Keefe, an allergist at Memorial University in St. Johns, Newfoundland.
“Physicians need to educate patients as to how to use the injectable epinephrine devices and encourage them to do so early during an episode of anaphylaxis, when they’re most effective,” he stressed in an interview.
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