ALLERGY TO FOODS IN PATIENTS MONOSENSITIZED TO ARTEMISIA POLLEN

It is known that patients with pollinosis may display clinical charact eristics caused by allergy to certain fruits and vegetables, but subje cts allergic to Artemisia seem to show particularly peculiar character istics. The clinical features of 84 patients with rhinitis, asthma, ur ticaria, and/or anaphylaxis whose inhalant allergy was exclusively to Artemisia vulgaris were studied and compared with a control group of 5 0 patients monosensitized to grass pollen. The mean age for the beginn ing of symptoms was 30.2 years, and this was higher than in the contro l group (P <0.05). We found the main incidence to be in women (70.2%). Some 42.3% had family history of atopia, lower than in the control gr oup (P <0.05), while the prevalence of asthma and urticaria was signif icantly higher (P <0.05). Food hypersensitivity was reported by 23 pat ients (27.3%) allergic to Artemisia. The foods responsible (with respe ctive numbers of cases) were honey (14), sunflower seeds (11), camomil e (four), pistachio (three), hazelnut (two), lettuce (two), pollen (tw o), beer (two), almond (one), peanut (one), other nuts (one), carrot ( one), and apple (one). None of the patients monosensitized to grass ha d food allergy. CAP inhibition experiments were carried out on a singl e patient. Results showed the existence of common antigenic epitopes i n pistachio and Artemisia pollen for this patient. We concluded that m ugwort hay fever can be associated with the Compositae family of foods , but that it is not normally associated with other foods.