A DGReview of :"Tuberculin
responses in children with allergic diseases."
Allergy
10/10/2002
By Elda Hauschildt
Allergic children who have been immunised with bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG)
show higher responses to tuberculin testing than do non-allergic, BCG-immunised
children.
Turkish researchers recorded positive tuberculin responses in 27.35 percent of
106 allergic children. This compared with a 6 percent positive rate in 100
non-allergic children they tested. All of the children had been immunised with
BCG.
Investigators from three research centres in Ankara, Zonguldak and Mersin, and
the Ministry of Finance, suggest that one factor associated with the increasing
prevalence of allergic disorders over the past 30 years may be the decline in
many childhood infections.
They studied tuberculin responses in allergic children to evaluate the
development of delayed-type hypersensitivity reactions to tuberculin bacillus
infection. Participants were tested using the standard Mantoux test. Reactions
were read after 72 hours.
There was a significant difference in the mean wheal size between the two groups
of children. In allergic children, the mean wheal size was 6.29 millimetres. In
non-allergic children, it was 2.79 mm.
Differences were also investigated between groups of children who had been
immunised with BCG once or twice. They found significant differences.
In children vaccinated once, the mean purified protein derivative (PPD) wheal
size was 4.77 mm in allergic children and 2.48 mm in non-allergic children. In
children vaccinated twice, mean PPD wheal size was 8.35 mm in allergic children
and 3.33 mm in non-allergic children.
Allergy, 2002; 57: 1059-1062.
"Tuberculin responses in children with allergic diseases."
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