A new study by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) has found that incidents of anaphylaxis are on the rise for children. The findings, published this week in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, show that the percentage of Emergency Room (ER) visits due to anaphylaxis has doubled over a four-year period, based on data collected from the Montreal Children’s Hospital of the MUHC (MCH-MUHC).
The team collected data from 965 anaphylaxis cases seen at MCH-MUHC between April 2011 and April 2015, as part of the nationwide Cross-Canada Anaphylaxis Registry (C-CARE)—a project of AllerGen NCE Inc. The annual percentage of ER visits to the MCH-MUHC due to anaphylaxis rose from 0.20% to 0.41%, with the largest annual increase between 2013-14 and 2014-15. 80.2% of anaphylaxis cases were triggered by food.
Researchers also found that children who did not receive epinephrine before arriving at the Emergency Room were more likely to require two or more doses of epinephrine at the ER.
To read more, please visit AllerGen online for coverage and a link to the full study. Information is available in both English and French.
Tags: Allergen, Allergy, Anaphylaxis, C-CARE, statistics