A long standing dogma is that seafood allergies and radiologic contrast material (RCM) allergies are both due to an iodine allergy and therefore a history of seafood allergy places a person at high risk of an allergy reaction to RCM.
Dr. Andrew D.Berry gave a talk at a recent meeting of the American Academy of Allergy,Asthma and Immunology (reported in the may 11,2007 edition of www.internalmedicinenews.com) that should disabuse doctors of what seems to be a medical myth.
According to the article-seafood allergy is due to a IgE mediated antibody to certain proteins in the seafood and the severe RCM reactions are not mediated by IgE at all.
Dr. Berry reported on a survey in which many radiologists and cardiologists would recommend pretreatment with antihistamines and/or steroid for a patient with a history of seafood allergy before injecting a RCM.
1 comment:
The question should be what, exactly, in both seafood and RCM was causing the reaction. Unfortunately, too many non-specialists believe non-IgE = "not life-threatening". That is not necessarily true. I truly wish more research were being done to identify both causes and treatments for both IgE and non-IgE mediated reactions.
Pax,
MLO
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