Anaphylaxis resulting from patch testing is very rare, according to new research presented at the American Contact Dermatitis Society (ACDS) 2022 Annual Meeting, held in Boston. The reaction was estimated to occur in fewer than 1 in 100,000 patients.
While anaphylaxis is listed as a potential risk of patch testing, there were previously no data indicating how often these events occur, said Karishma Daftary, a medical student at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, Kentucky, and a visiting predoctoral research fellow in Northwestern University School of Medicine's Department of Dermatology in Chicago. She presented the research at the March 24th conference.
"We were curious to see how common this is," she said in an interview with Medscape Medical News. "Have most patch testers had an experience like this, or is it more rare?"
To find out, Daftary and colleagues invited 35 expert patch testing dermatologists from the United States and Canada to complete a survey asking participants about their years of experience patch testing, the average number of patients for whom they conduct patch tests each year, and any history of patients developing anaphylaxis following patch testing. To distinguish these events from panic attacks, which can sometimes have anaphylaxis-like symptoms, cases only qualified if a patient had difficulty breathing, experienced hypotension, and was in need of additional medical care (such as an EpiPen or a transfer to the emergency department).
