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Products: Cashews, Hazelnuts, Peanuts
Subject: Allergy

Systematic review and meta-analyses on the accuracy of diagnostic tests for IgE-mediated food allergy

Authors: Riggioni, C., Ricci, C., Moya, B., Wong, D., van Goor, E., Bartha, I., Buyuktiryaki, B., Giovannini, M., Jayasinghe, S., Jaumdally, H., Marques-Mejias, A., Piletta-Zanin, A., Berbenyuk, A., Andreeva, M., Levina, D., Iakovleva, E., Roberts, G., Chu, D., Peters, R., du Toit, G., … Santos, A. F.
  • Journals: Allergy
  • Pages: 324–352
  • Volume: 79(2)
  • Year: 2024
The European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI) is updating the Guidelines on Food Allergy Diagnosis. We aimed to undertake a systematic review of the literature with meta-analyses to assess the accuracy of diagnostic tests for IgE-mediated food allergy. We searched three databases (Cochrane CENTRAL (Trials), MEDLINE (OVID) and Embase (OVID)) for diagnostic test accuracy studies published between 1 October 2012 and 30 June 2021 according to a previously published protocol (CRD42021259186). We independently screened abstracts, extracted data from full texts and assessed risk of bias with QUADRAS 2 tool in duplicate. Meta-analyses were undertaken for food-test combinations for which three or more studies were available. A total of 149 studies comprising 24,489 patients met the inclusion criteria and they were generally heterogeneous. 60.4% of studies were in children ≤12 years of age, 54.3% were undertaken in Europe, ≥95% were conducted in a specialized paediatric or allergy clinical setting and all included oral food challenge in at least a percentage of enrolled patients, in 21.5% double-blind placebo-controlled food challenges. Skin prick test (SPT) with fresh cow's milk and raw egg had high sensitivity (90% and 94%) for milk and cooked egg allergies. Specific IgE (sIgE) to individual components had high specificity: Ara h 2-sIgE had 92%, Cor a 14-sIgE 95%, Ana o 3-sIgE 94%, casein-sIgE 93%, ovomucoid-sIgE 92/91% for the diagnosis of peanut, hazelnut, cashew, cow's milk and raw/cooked egg allergies, respectively. The basophil activation test (BAT) was highly specific for the diagnosis of peanut (90%) and sesame (93%) allergies. In conclusion, SPT and specific IgE to extracts had high sensitivity whereas specific IgE to components and BAT had high specificity to support the diagnosis of individual food allergies.
https://doi.org/10.1111/all.15939