J Korean Soc Emerg Med.  2004 Dec;15(6):531-536.

Clinical Investigation of an Acute Allergic Reaction in a Patient Admitted to the Emergency Department of a College Hospital in a Small City

• Park CW
• Ok TG
• Cho JH
• Kim SE
• Choi KH
• Bae JH
• Seo JY
• Chung JB
• Ahn HC
• Ahn ME
• Cho BR
• You KC

Abstract

PURPOSE
Emergency department visits for acute allergic reactions are common. However, relatively little is known about the characteristics of patients who visit the emergency department for such reactions. We undertook this study to evaluate the frequency, the cause, the severity, the treatment and the prognosis of patients admitted for allergic reactions to a college hospital in a city.
METHODS
We studied 724 patients visiting two emergency departments of college hospitals during the years 2002-2003. Clinical symptoms involved pruritus, dyspnea, hoarseness, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, dizziness, and seizure. Physical examinations involved vital signs, urticaria, rash, local edema, angioedema, rhinitis/conjunctivitis, wheezing, stridor, cyanosis, and laryngeal edema. We divided the causative agents into drugs, insects, foods, and others. We classified the treatments of the allergic reaction as antihistamines, corticosteroids, epinephrine, oxygen, and hydration. We divided patients into mild, moderate, and severe acute hypersensitivity groups.
RESULTS
In order of frequency, clinical symptoms were pruritus (88.1%), urticaria (72.4%), rash (68.9%), local edema (11.7%), etc. The causative agents were foods (53.0%), unknown origin (29.1%), insects (11.0%), and drugs (6.8%). Antihistamine, corticosteroid, epinephrine were injected in 93.4%, 89.1%, 2.3% of the patients, respectively. The mild, moderate, and severe groups were 87%, 9.8%, and 3.2% of the patients, respectively.
CONCLUSION
For patients with allergic symptoms visiting to the university-affiliated teaching hospitals in a small city, foods were the major causative agent, but drugs and insects provoked more severe allergic reactions.

Keyword

Hypersensitivity; Anaphylaxis; Emergencies

MeSH Terms

Abdominal Pain
Adrenal Cortex Hormones
Anaphylaxis
Angioedema
Cyanosis
Diarrhea
Dizziness
Dyspnea
Edema
Emergencies*
Emergency Service, Hospital*
Epinephrine
Exanthema
Histamine Antagonists
Hoarseness
Hospitals, Teaching
Humans
Hypersensitivity*
Insects
Laryngeal Edema
Nausea
Oxygen
Physical Examination
Prognosis
Pruritus
Respiratory Sounds
Seizures
Urticaria
Vital Signs
Vomiting
Adrenal Cortex Hormones
Epinephrine
Histamine Antagonists
Oxygen