Australian Anaphylaxis amplification

Anaphylaxis is increasingly common. The patient population death rate for anaphylaxis is Australia in 2013 was over double that reported in the UK Dr Ray Mullins, an allergist in Canberra, and colleagues from Sydney and Singapore have recently reported an increase in in the number of anaphylaxis fatalities in Australia. This is currently trending towards a 3 fold increase in anaphylaxis deaths over the study period of 15 years. Mullins and colleagues had previously identified a rise in the rate of all food allergy, with the most dramatic effect in young childhood food where hospital admission analyses showed a 500% increase in children 0-4 years of age over a 10 year period. This has been shown to further increase in the subsequent 5 years. The mortality data, extracted from analysis of coronial cases, was presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology in Los Angeles in March and the full article has appeared in Clinical and Experimental Allergy last week ahead of journal publication. Idiopathic /unspecified anaphylaxis represent the largest proportion of fatal cases after 19 years of age. Food allergy is the most common fatal cause of anaphylaxis in childhood and despite Australia leading the world in many aspects with respects to guidelines, patient and doctor resources/training, and food allergy research/advocacy, food allergy deaths appear to have a greater trend (approximately 4-fold) over the 15 year period of analysis. Seafood, NOT nuts w...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Clinical Research Education Immunology allergy Anaphylaxis EpiPen mastocytosis Ray Mullins Source Type: blogs