Provocation proven drug allergy in Thai children with adverse drug reactions

Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are a common healthcare problem. The drug provocation test (DPT) is a gold standard for ADR diagnosis.

To evaluate a correlation between history of ADRs, skin prick test (SPT), intradermal test (ID) and DPT in Thai children.

This was a retrospective review of 211 children under 16 years of age who had a history of ADRs and underwent DPT from January 2006 to December 2012.

Two hundred and thirty six (236) DPTs were performed in 211 children with a history of ADRs. The median age at which DPTs were performed was 4 years. Thirty-four children (14.4%) had positive DPT. The positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), sensitivity, specificity, likelihood ratio (LR) + and LR- of SPT were 50, 85.7, 6.9, 98.8%, 5.8 and 0.9, respectively. The PPV, NPV, sensitivity, specificity, LR+ and LR- of ID were 33.3, 84.6, 20, 91.7%, 2.4 and 0.9, respectively. Different presentation of symptoms (maculopapular rashes, urticaria, angioedema and anaphylaxis) did not predict SPT, ID and DPT results. Positive human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), but not atopy, was a risk in the present scope of evaluation for drug allergy (odds ratio 11.44, 95% confidence interval 2.60-50.41).

Drug allergy, denoted by positive DPT, was present in 14.4% of Thai children with a history of ADRs. Antibiotics were the most common cause of ADRs. Both SPT and ID had high NPV and specificity but did not predict DPT results. HIV positivity is a risk factor of drug allergy in Thai children.