LATEX ALLERGY IN OPERATING-ROOM NURSES

Objective: To determine the prevalence of allergy to natural rubber la tex and potential crossreacting foods in operating room nurses. Method : Two hundred forty-seven operating room nurses completed a latex alle rgy questionnaire. They were questioned about symptoms of latex reacti vity and about other allergies particularly to foods that may crossrea ct with latex. Informed consent was obtained and skin prick testing wa s performed with natural rubber latex and five latex extracts represen ting low (0.08 to 0.25 mu g/mL) and high (18 to 106 mu g/mL) natural r ubber latex protein gloves. Skin prick tests were done with four poten tially crossreacting foods (banana, avocado, kiwi, and potato), saline , and histamine controls. Results: One hundred thirty-five (54.7%) nur ses described allergic symptoms they attributed to latex exposure. Of these 12 (4.9%) tested positive to latex extracts alone, 12 (4.9%) tes ted positive to food extracts alone, and 5 (2.0%) tested positive to b oth latex and crossreactive foods. Three of the 17 (17.6%) nurses test ing positive to latex gave no history of reactivity to latex. Indirect latex ELISA was done on the serum of skin test-positive patients with a 70.6% sensitivity. Conclusion: Of the nurses tested, 6.9% had posit ive skin prick tests to latex extracts; 17.6% of these were asymptomat ic and 29.4% had associated food positive skin prick tests.