Evaluation of drug-related hypersensitivity reactions in children

Patients with drug reactions are often referred to allergists for "allergy" . Shin testing and clinical history seem to have a good negative predictive value, however, although drug challenge could be dangerous, it is the only way to confirm the diagnosis. We aimed to demonstrate that most children w ith a history of non-life-threatening drug reactions do not have a true dru g allergy and examined the use of drug challenge in childhood. Patients wit h reactions were referred to our clinic by pediatricians. In 1 year, 354 re actions were studied in 239 children. Patients were classified according to their positive or negative history of drug allergy: Skin prick testing was done in all cases. Exclusion criteria for challenge included drug anaphyla xis, Stevens-Johnson syndrome, systemic reactions with severe concomitant i llness, beta-inhibifor drug therapy or positive skin test to the implicated drug with a positive history It was found that the beta-lactam antibiotics were involved in 50% of suspected reactions, aspirin in 10% and sulfonamid es in 9%. Histories were considered positive only in 25%. Drug challenges c onfirmed only 4% of all reactions. If was concluded that drug challenge may be the gold standard for most childhood reactions that are considered to b e allergic, non-life-threatening and drug-related. Only 4% of these suspect ed reactions were exclusively caused by drug allergy.