[Hemagglutination test and the diagnosis of food allergy]

We have studied 50 children suspected to have food allergy. Their clinical diagnoses included the following: digestive trouble (prolonged diarrhoea or vomiting), abdominal pain, repetitive urticaria, angioneurotic edema, eczema. The aim of thie study has been to value the results obtained with the hemagglutination test according to Boyden, comparing them with skin tests carried out through intradermal techniques. 113 hemagglutination and skin tests with varying foods have been carried out. Nearly all the children have been tested with milk, white and yolk of egg, the most suspected foods, and also other foods depending on the data found through anamnesis. With milk (47 cases) we have obtained positivity in 12 hemagglutination tests, and in 3 skin tests. With egg (41 cases) the hemagglutination test has been positive in 14 cases, and the skin test in 5 cases. Conjunctly in the 113 cases we have obtained positive hemagglutination test in 44 cases, and positive skin test in 14 cases. In 65 cases both tests have been negative. This fact points to the necessity to realize other diagnostic tests, as well the possibility that these children have no allergic disease. Summarizing, these results support the superior value of the hemagglutination Boyden test in comparison with the skin test as diagnosic proof in food allergy.