[In vitro diagnosis of food allergy. Correlations among different diagnostic methods]

Diagnosis of immediate-type food allergy (AA) needs several kinds of investigation. To make their respective values clearer, we have studied the correlations that may exist between clinical scores, prick-tests (PT), oral provocation tests (TPO), measurement of fixed IgE on the polynuclear basophils (TDBH) free, serum IgE (RAST) and lymphoblast transformation (TTB) in 105 patients aged from 5 months to 17 years 3 months, who were suspected of AA. The weakest tests were PT and TPO of which the use (or not) at first were the two possible diagnostic approaches for AA. The study of the linear correlations between the different diagnostic tests taken two by two showed that there was a statistically significant correlation - the only one that we found - between PT and RAST (p2 less than 0.001). Finally, the level of agreement between PT and TPO was 86%.