EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY OF CLINICAL FINDINGS AND OUTCOME OF HOSPITALIZED INFANTS AND CHILDREN WITH FOOD ALLERGY

Food allergies or additive reactions occur as an adverse immune response to food allergens. Food allergies vary with age, local food, and many other factors. The purpose of this study was to determine the causes, types, demographic, clinical, and laboratory characteristics and outcomes of infants and children hospitalized in Motahari Hospital with a diagnosis of food allergy in 2009-2019.

In this retrospective cross-sectional descriptive study, infants and children admitted to Motahari Hospital in Urmia between 2019 and 2019 were examined due to food allergies. Information such as age, gender, location, clinical symptoms, etc. were extracted from the files of these patients and then analyzed.

The average age of the patients in this study was 9.43 months. Boys constituted 57.1% of the studied population. Family history of food allergy was positive in only 2.6% of patients. The prevalence in different seasons was winter (31.2%), summer (28.6%), autumn (26%) and spring (14.3%). The prevalence of allergenic foods was cow's milk (85.7%) and eggs (2.6%). Non-IgE sensitivity was 79.2% and IgE sensitivity was 20.8%. Clinical symptoms in children and infants with food allergy included enterocolitis (77.9%), urticaria and angioedema (11.7%), urticaria (5.2%) and angioedema (5.2%).

The results of this study showed that boys and people living in the city constitute a higher percentage of the studied society. Winter was also the most common season. The most common allergen was cow's milk, and most patients had non-IgE-related allergies. The most common clinical symptoms in patients were enterocolitis, urticaria, and skin rash. Mortality was not observed among patients.