Introduction:

The prevalence of food allergies has increased, representing a public health problem. Current dietary guidelines recommend delaying the introduction of food in order to prevent food allergies, but supporting evidence for this is lacking.

Objectives:

To describe the clinical profile of pediatric patients presenting with a diagnosis of egg allergy.

Materials and methods:

This was a descriptive, retrospective, observational study. We included patients with a suspected egg allergy who had a RAST study. We evaluated demographic data, breastfeeding, introduction of solid foods, including egg, and the presence of allergy manifestations. A comparison was made between the groups with positive RAST and those with negative results. The data was processed in Microsoft Excel and descriptive variables were used.

Results:

156 patients were included in the study, 58 in each group with positive and negative tests. Egg-allergic patients were predominantly male, with a personal history of atopy, normal weight and size, an average breastfeeding duration of 10.5 months, introduction of solids at 5.7 months, age of intake of egg at 9.2 months, which was similar to the group with negative testing. The predominant symptoms were gastrointestinal. Concomitant atopy manifestations included a higher percentage of cow's milk protein allergy and atopic dermatitis compared to the group with a negative testing.

Conclusions:

There were no demographic or dietary differences between the groups with positive and negative RAST. There was concomitance of other allergic manifestations in the positive RAST group.

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