Allergy to mammal's meat in adult life: immunologic and follow-up study

Allergy to bovine meat and Bovine serum albumin (BSA) is exceptional, especially in the adult life. BSA is considered a minor allergen in cow's milk allergy, but there is little information about this antigen in reactions produced by other beef products as meat. To our knowledge, evolutive studies of beef's allergic patients have not been reported.

To present one patient with several allergic reactions (urticaria-angioedema) after eating different mammals' meat.

The patient underwent allergy testing through skin prick test (SPT), specific IgE detection and SDS-PAGE Immunoblotting and Immunodot inhibition studies. Periodic determinations of specific IgE to meats and epithelia were performed.

Routine studies for chronic urticaria were normal or negative. SPT showed positive responses to pork, cow, rabbit and lamb meat, and dog, pork, sheep and cow epithelia. It was negative to cat, horse, guinea pig, rabbit, lamb, mouse epithelia, mixture of feathers, cow milk, soybean, mustard, mites and chicken meat and Anisakis simplex. Intradermal testing to BSA was positive. Determinations of specific IgE were positive to beef meat, lamb meat, pork meat and rabbit meat, dog, cat, cow, sheep and pork dander, cow's milk, and negative to chicken meat. Immunoblot and immunodot studies showed IgE recognition bands to bovine and lamb meat which were totally inhibited by BSA. A progressive reduction of the total and specific IgE, the latter until its total negativization, has been observed in the following three-year period.

We report a case of IgE-mediated urticaria-angioedema due to BSA hypersensitivity, possibly induced by a subclinical sensitivity to dog and cat epithelium. The exclusion diet in patients allergic to these foods may be a progressive loss of clinical allergy.