Basic panel for children
These six foods are responsible for the vast majority of food allergic reactions, especially in childhood, so the panel serves as a standard starting point when evaluating a child with atopic dermatitis, urticaria, or gastrointestinal symptoms. The prognosis for different allergens differs fundamentally: allergies to milk and eggs in most children go away by school age, while reactions to peanuts and fish often persist for life. This influences the tactics - foods that the child may “outgrow” are periodically rechecked so as not to maintain an unreasonably strict diet for years. An important rule: a product should be excluded only if there are real symptoms after consuming it, and not just based on a positive test.
Blood test instead of skin test
Determination of specific IgE in the blood has important advantages over skin tests: it can be carried out during an exacerbation, while taking antihistamines, with severe dermatitis, when the skin is unsuitable for testing, and in young children. There is also no risk of a systemic reaction, since the allergen is not introduced into the body.
The panel format allows you to immediately test a group of related allergens in one blood draw - it is cheaper and more informative than testing each one separately.
How to read the result
- class 0 - no antibodies detected
- class 1 - low level, clinical significance is questionable
- grades 2–3 - moderate level, reaction is likely
- grades 4–6 – high and very high level, reaction is very likely
The main rule of interpretation
The presence of specific IgE means sensitization - the readiness of the immune system to respond, but not the allergy itself. A diagnosis is made only if laboratory data coincide with real symptoms after contact with this allergen. That is why you should not exclude a product from the diet only on the basis of analysis, without clinical manifestations - especially in children.