Could New Blood Test Replace Invasive Allergy Testing?

Researchers from Mount Sinai Hospital say a new blood test will help predict patients’ severe food allergies.

In a Mount Sinai-led study of 67 individuals between the ages of 12 and 45, participants underwent double-blind, placebo-controlled food challenges (DBPCFCs) for tree nut, peanut, fish, shrimp and other allergens as part of screening for enrollment in a clinical trial. The researchers took blood samples from the patients, with the goal of determining whether basophil activation test (BAT) results would correlate with food challenge results, according to a Mount Sinai statement.
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The authors found that this simple blood test can accurately predict the severity of each individual’s allergic reaction by counting the numbers of 1 type of immune cell—the basophil—activated by exposure to a food. The BAT requires “only a small blood sample and provides quick results,” according to the investigators.

Prior to the randomized food challenge, the team analyzed the results of the aforementioned blood tests, finding a “strong correlation” between BAT testing data and food-challenge severity scores. This finding, they say, provides evidence that BAT testing can lower the need for food challenges for peanut as well as tree nut, fish, shellfish, and sesame, and possibly other foods as well.

While providing “crucial information” as to patients’ potential for a severe allergic reaction to a food, “having blood drawn for BAT testing is a much more comfortable procedure than food challenges,” said Ying Song, MD, a researcher at Mount Sinai’s Jaffe Food Allergy Institute, and lead study author, in the aforementioned statement.

“Although food challenges are widely practiced, they carry the risk of severe allergic reactions,” according to Song, “and we believe BAT testing will provide accurate information in a safer manner.”

—Mark McGraw

Reference

Song Y, Wang J, et al. Correlations between basophil activation, allergen-specific IgE with outcome and severity of oral food challenges. Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. 2015.