Peach allergy pattern: experience in 70 patients

We report the clinical characteristics of peach allergy encountered in a population of peach-allergic patients. We evaluated 165 patients, The 70 peach-allergic patients were diagnosed through clinical history, the skin prick-prick test. and open oral challenge and rub tests to peach, As a pollinic control group. 95 pollen-allergic patients were also evaluated, Some 49% of the patients were male and 51% female. The mean age was 20 +/- 8 years, Oral allergy syndrome (86%) was the most common symptom, followed by contact urticaria (61%) and systemic symptoms (26%). Some 67% of the patients were allergic to peach pulp. and 36% reported symptoms related to canned peach. Canned peach and pulp symptoms were statistically associated (P < 0.01). and symptoms to canned peach were more frequently reported by patients with systemic symptoms (P < 0.05). On evaluation of the peach-allergic patients' characteristics. three risk factors-allergy to peach pulp allergy to canned peach, and peach allergy in non-pollen-allergic patients - were found, indicating development of systemic symptoms on eating peach. Most of the peach-allergic patients (81%) also had pollen allergy which was linked to a higher prevalence of asthma (73%) than in the pollen-allergic patients of the control group (48%): this difference was statistically significant (P < 0.01). Finally, two groups were clearly defined by the seriousness of the peach allergy - the non-pollen-allergic patients were more predisposed to the occurrence of systemic symptoms (> 50%), and the pollen-allergic patients to asthma (> 70%).