, according to David Vyles, DO, and his associates at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
Because there is no process to safely and rapidly diagnose true penicillin allergy in a critical care setting, pediatric providers are reluctant to prescribe penicillin to children with a reported allergy. In this study, a three-tier penicillin testing process was used to evaluate the accuracy of a parent-reported penicillin allergy questionnaire in identifying children likely to be at low risk for penicillin allergy in an ED setting.
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“Our results in the current study highlight that the high percentage of patients reporting a penicillin allergy to medical providers are likely inconsistent with true allergy,” concluded Dr. Vyles and his associates.
Read more at Pediatrics (2017. doi: 10.1542/peds.2017-0471).