Pediatr Allergy Respir Dis.  2007 Dec;17(4):335-343.

Peanut Allergy

• Kim JH

Abstract

Recently, the peanut allergy has been of great concern because its prevalence and life-threatening events are increasing in North America and Europe. Peanut is the most common food to cause fatal and near-fatal food allergy. The threshold of clinical reactivity can be very low. Approximately 50% of young children with egg allergy develop oral tolerance to egg by age 5 years, while about 80% of young children will react to peanuts after this age. Current treatment is strict avoidance of all peanut products and timely treatment of accidental ingestions with antihistamines and self-injectable epinephrine. Several factors of processing and cooking methods of peanut can explain the differences of the rate of peanut allergy among the countries. However, it is expected that the prevalence of peanut allergy will increase in Korea because westernized dietary pattern are getting popular. This review focuses on current understandings of peanut allergy including immunologic characteristics of peanut, diagnosis, recommendation, and recent researches for new treatment of peanut allergy.

Keyword

Peanut allergy

MeSH Terms

Arachis
Child
Cooking
Diagnosis
Egg Hypersensitivity
Epinephrine
Europe
Food Hypersensitivity
Histamine Antagonists
Humans
Korea
North America
Ovum
Peanut Hypersensitivity*
Prevalence
Epinephrine
Histamine Antagonists