High Rate of House Dust Mite Sensitization in a Shrimp Allergic
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Rosenfield et al. Allergy Asthma Clin Immunol (2017) 13:5 Allergy, Asthma & Clinical Immunology DOI 10.1186/s13223-017-0177-x RESEARCH Open Access High rate of house dust mite sensitization in a shrimp allergic southern Ontario population Lana Rosenfield1* , Michael William Tsoulis2, Kirolos Milio3, Meghan Schnittke4 and Harold Kim1,4,5 Abstract Background: Shrimp and house dust mite (HDM) allergies are common in Canadians. Often, both of these allergies occur in the same patient. This may be due to homology of tropomyosin or other potentially shared proteins. The aim of our study was to assess the frequency of house dust mite sensitization in a shrimp allergic Canadian population. Methods: We undertook a retrospective chart review of shrimp allergic patients at an outpatient allergy clinic in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Our primary endpoint was to assess for presence of HDM sensitization in this population. Patients were categorized into approximate quartiles. We assessed the severity of the shrimp reactions, correlated shrimp skin test size to HDM skin test size, and measured the proportion of patients with atopic symptoms. Results: We identified 95 shrimp allergic patients who were tested for house dust mite. 86 (90.5%) of these patients had a positive skin test to HDM. Patients with a shrimp skin test 5 mm were 5.31 times (95% CI, 1.55–18.14; p 0.008) more likely to exhibit a dust mite skin test 5 mm than patients≥ with a shrimp skin test <5 mm. The odds= of a patient with a shrimp skin test between 10 and≥ 18 mm having a larger HDM skin test were 3.93 times (95% CI 1.03–14.98, p 0.045) the odds for a patient with a shrimp skin test size between 3 and 4 mm. We did not find a cor- relation between= shrimp skin test size and shrimp reaction symptom grade (p 0.301). = Conclusion: In our Canadian patients, we found a large majority of shrimp allergic patients to be sensitized to HDM. We found that patients with a large skin test to shrimp were more likely to have a large skin test to HDM compared to those patients with a small skin test to shrimp. We did not find a correlation between shrimp skin test size and shrimp reaction symptom severity. Most of these patients had symptoms of rhinitis and/or asthma that may have been caused by house dust mite allergy. Keywords: House dust mite, Shrimp, Tropomyosin, Canadian, Allergen cross-reactivity, Food allergy, Skin test Background shrimp [2, 3]. It is a protein present in both that shares Shrimp and house dust mite (HDM) allergies are encoun- homology between HDM and shrimp [4]. Tropomyosin tered frequently in Canadian allergy clinics. The preva- in shrimp, referred to as Pen a 1, is the major allergen in lence of shellfish allergy in Canada has been found to be shrimp [5, 6] and has been shown to be detected in 41% 1.6% [1]. There are times when both of these allergies are of patients with shrimp allergy in an Italian population seen in the same patients, which has been an area of study. [7]. Der p 10, the tropomyosin found in HDM is present Tropomyosin, a muscle protein, is thought to be in a minority of patients with HDM allergy [8, 9]. In a responsible for the relationship between HDM and study on European patients 9–18% showed IgE reactiv- ity to Der p 10 [10], with some studies showing as low *Correspondence: [email protected] as 4.3% [11] and others up to 25% in adults and 30% in 1 Division of Clinical Immunology and Allergy, Department of Medicine children [12]. Some have postulated these higher levels Michael D. DeGroote School of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, being in patients with HDM sensitization who live in cos- ON, Canada Full list of author information is available at the end of the article tal location with more seafood intake [12]. © The Author(s) 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/ publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Rosenfield et al. Allergy Asthma Clin Immunol (2017) 13:5 Page 2 of 7 The tropomyosin present in HDM and shrimp has Specific IgE shown cross reactivity [4, 13]. While both shrimp and For some of our patients, serum specific IgE testing was HDM have tropomyosin, there is variable evidence on done in community labs by ImmunoCap®. showing presence of an allergy to both in patients. There is also evidence which questions tropomyosin as the Diagnosing shrimp allergy allergen responsible for cross-reactivity with shellfish, Shrimp allergy was diagnosed based on clinical history and that other proteins may be a factor [14]. Tropomyo- of an IgE-mediated reaction with positive skin prick test- sin also has been shown to be responsible for cross reac- ing and/or serum specific IgE levels. The severity of the tivity between different crustacea, such as shrimp, crab reaction was categorized based on previously published and lobster, due to homology between the protein in guides for grading food induced anaphylaxis [15]. these species [3, 5]. We undertook a retrospective chart review to assess Statistical analysis for the presence of HDM sensitization (positive skin test) All statistical analyses were carried out with SPSS soft- in shrimp allergic Canadians. The severity of the shrimp ware (Version 23; IBM, Chicago, Ill). The 2χ test for reactions was estimated based on patients’ history. We Independence or Fisher’s exact test for Independence, correlated shrimp skin test size to the clinical reaction where appropriate, was used to analyze the association severity to shrimp. Other objectives included assessing if between 2 categorical variables. Independent-sample those shrimp allergic patients who are sensitized to HDM Student t test was used to compare the mean score of have symptomatic HDM allergy, and for a possible corre- continuous data between categorical groups, namely lation of shrimp skin test size with the presence of HDM patients allergic to shrimp with sensitization to dust allergic symptoms. mite versus patients allergic to shrimp without sen- sitization to dust mite. Binary logistic regression was Methods used to estimate the influence of shrimp allergy on dust Ethics mite allergy. The dependent variable was skin test to Ethics was obtained through the Hamilton Integrated dust mite (≥5 mm = 1 and <5 mm = 0) and explana- Research Ethics Board. tory variable was skin test to shrimp (≥5 mm = 1 and <5 mm = 0). To better ascertain the relationship Patient selection between dust mite and shrimp sensitization, an ordinal The charts of patients, with clinical shellfish allergy with logistic regression was used to estimate the influence positive skin tests to shrimp, who presented to an out- of shrimp sensitization severity on dust mite sensitiza- patient allergy clinic in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada were tion severity. Both shrimp and dust mite skin test val- reviewed. The clinical history of the reaction(s), skin ues were apportioned into quartiles: Shrimp, 25th, 50th, prick testing and specific IgE to shrimp and other shell- and 75th at 5, 7, and 10 mm, respectively; Dust mite, fish was extracted from the available clinical data. Skin 25th, 50th, and 75th at 3, 5, and 7 mm, respectively. test results to aeroallergens including house dust mite Quartered shrimp skin test values were used as the was also recorded. explanatory variable and quartered dust mite skin test values were used as the dependent variable. Odds ratios Skin prick testing (ORs) were reported with corresponding 95% confi- All patients with the question of shrimp allergy underwent dence intervals (95% CIs). All tests were 2-sided and p skin prick testing testing to crustaceans. Most patients values <0.05 were considered statistically significant. presenting with food allergy to the clinic had testing to the inhalant allergens, including HDM. Reagents for skin prick Results testing to shrimp were from Omega Laboratories Ltd. Skin Demographics and diagnosis of shrimp allergy prick testing for HDM was done with D. farinae and D. We identified 95 patients with shrimp allergy that were pteronyssinus at a concentration of 30,000 AU/mL (Hollis- also tested to HDM. The demographic data of these ter-Stier). The largest skin test wheal of D. farinae or D. pter- patients along with presence of other crustacean and onyssinus was recorded. The HDM skin test was recorded as inhalant allergies and symptoms of atopy can be found in negative if both species of HDM tests were negative. A posi- Table 1. There was no significant difference between the tive result was considered ≥3 mm wheal compared to the size of skin test to shrimp and average of grade of symp- negative control test. The results of skin testing were placed toms to shrimp ingestion between those with and with- into groupings based on wheal diameter. out dust mite sensitization (Table 1). Rosenfield et al. Allergy Asthma Clin Immunol (2017) 13:5 Page 3 of 7 Table 1 Demographic characteristics Shrimp allergy & HDM Shrimp allergy & HDM p value + − n 86 9 Age 29.40 2.08 17.78 4.82 0.083 ± ± Sex Male (%) 55 (59) 5 (56) 0.935 Female (%) 39 (41) 4 (44) Shrimp skin test (mm) 7.07 0.29 7.22 0.70 0.871 ± ± Shrimp symptoms (grade 1–5) 2.36 0.13 2.56 0.44 0.685 ± ± Lobster allergy (%) 50 (82)a 7 (100)b 0.588 Crab allergy (%) 37 (62)a 3 (43)b 0.427 Other food allergy (%) 27 (31) 3 (33) 0.905 Ragweed allergy (%) 49 (57) 7 (78) 0.300 Dog allergy (%) 36 (42) 4 (44) 0.881 Cat allergy (%) 57 (66) 7 (78) 0.714 Alternaria allergy (%) 30 (35) 2 (22) 0.713 Grass allergy (%) 56 (65) 8 (89) 0.263 Asthma (%) 40 (47) 5 (56) 0.731 Allergic rhinitis (%) 55 (64) 6 (67) 0.872 Atopic dermatitis (%) 14 (16) 1 (11) 0.686 Demographic data for shrimp allergic patients with positive ( ) or negative ( ) skin test to house dust mite (HDM).