[Bronchial asthma following Daphnia allergy]

In general medical practice too little attention is devoted to daphnia allergy. Therefore in the past 6 years we asked 611 patients with extrinsic and intrinsic asthma whether they have an aquarium in their residence resp. whether they use fish-food with dried daphnia. 43 patients with atopic asthma and allergic rhinitis were exposed, 28 of them had high positive Prick-test-reaction with daphnia extracts. All these sensitized patients had their symptoms in connection with the exposition to dried daphnia. But nobody told spontaneously about this special cause of symptoms. After avoiding contact to daphnia all patients became free from symptoms. Therefore it is recommended always to ask for daphnia exposition when making the allergic case history.