Hindered digestion puts patients with fish allergy at risk to develop severe allergic reactions at minute amounts of allergens.

Cold urticaria is a skin condition characterized by rapid appearance of itchy wheals and occasionally angioedema in response to cold stimulation. Antihistamines do not sufficiently protect all patients from symptoms, even when used in higher than standard doses. In these patients, desensitization to cold can be beneficial. The aim was to investigate whether desensitization can lower temperature thresholds and reduce release of histamine in the skin. Cold urticaria patients were subjected to desensitization and assessed for skin responses to cold stimulation and codeine before and after. Histamine levels mediated by cold and codeine were determined by cutaneous microdialysis before and after desensitization in patients and healthy controls. Desensitization to cold resulted in protection from cold-induced symptoms and lower temperature thresholds in six out of nine patients. Desensitization also prevented histamine release after skin exposure to cold. Surprisingly, skin histamine levels and release after codeine injection were found to be normal in desensitized patients.

An agarose film has been proposed as an efficient substrate for producing microarrays. The original film preparation procedure was simplified significantly by grafting the agarose layer directly onto unmodified microscope glass slides instead of aminated glass slides, and the blocking procedure was replaced with a wash in 0.1x standard saline citrate (SSC) and 0.5% sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) without decreasing the performance of the produced microarrays. Characterization of the grafted agarose film using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that the agarose film had a 10-fold increase in surface roughness compared to glass and that the interior of the agarose film was porous, with pore sizes between 100-500 nm. A comparison of hybridization on aldehyde-activated agarose-coated microarray slides and commercial amino-reactive microarray slides showed that aldehyde-activated agarose-coated slides had the highest signal-to-noise ratio of 850, suggesting that the aldehyde-activated agarose microarray slides are suitable in applications where analytes have a wide concentration range. By immobilizing the DNA probes using ultraviolet (UV) light, the signal-to-noise ratio was further increased to 3000 on the agarose microarray slides. The specificity of the UV cross-linked DNA probes was demonstrated using 21 and 25 bp long capture probes, enabling discrimination of target molecules differing in only one base.

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Peanut-allergic children might be at risk for reactions to other legumes. However, it is not always possible to perform multiple oral food challenges in children. On the basis of patient case history, in vitro diagnostic tests, and eventually food challenges, we aimed at developing an algorithm for risk assessment of possible clinical reactions to other legumes (soybean, lupine, fresh, and blanched green pea). Seventy-five consecutive patients with a positive oral food challenge to peanut were included in the study. All tests were run as part of the routine allergy examination. A high proportion of patients and/or caretakers refused the administered legume oral food challenges. Obtained diagnoses from histamine release did not correlate significantly to the outcome of the algorithm. Interestingly, threshold from peanut challenges did not correlate with the risk assessment.The algorithm presented in this study can be used when advising peanut-allergic children and their caretakers about what other legumes to avoid in the diet.