Tolerability to dogfish in children with fish allergy

Abstract

Background: Fish is a potent food allergen. The aim of this work is to demonstrate that dogfish, a small shark, has low allergenicity in both its clinical tolerance as well as its molecular structure.

Methods: We present a study of 34 paediatric patients with IgE-mediated immediate reactions after eating fish. The diagnosis of several fish allergies was demonstrated by skin prick techniques and determination of specific IgE, in all the cases excluding sensitisation to Anisakis simplex. Open oral challenge test was checked with dogfish. Analysis was by SDS-PAGE of dogfish and other fish (megrim, shark, hake, sole, cod, anchovy and tuna) and Western-blot with "pool" of patients polysensitised sera against extracts of dogfish and other fish, and ELISA - inhibition with the "pool" sera.

Results: The prick-prick with raw dogfish was slightly positive in six patients, however cooked was negative in 34 cases. The specific IgE showed in the 34 cases class ≥2 for megrim, hake, sole, cod and anchovy, class 0 for tuna in 26 patients, class 0 for emperor in 18 patients and class 0 to Anisakis simplex in all cases. The IgE binding capacity for proteins of allergenic extracts of tested fish revealed, in immunoblotting, the absence of IgE-mediated recognition abstract dogfish by the "pool" of polysensitised patient sera.

Conclusions: Testing in vivo and in vitro demonstrated the low allergenicity of dogfish. Dogfish brings an alternative to eating fish in polysensitised patients.

Keywords: Dogfish; Fish allergy; Low allergenicity; Polysensitised patients; Tolerance.