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Allergic Children Have Higher Tuberculin Test Responses

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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