"New Food Allergy Tests Hold Hope for Reliable Results" - Claire Gagne
New diagnostic tests are being developed that aim to more accurately diagnose a patient’s food allergy. Currently, skin-prick testing and blood tests provide insight into whether someone is allergic, but are not the most reliable tools. “Allergists don’t have a test that’s highly accurate for diagnosing food allergy. When you look at the tests that are out there, they’re in about the 80 percent accuracy range,” said Hugh Sampson, MD, director of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. From years of studying patients and looking at patterns of IgE binding in comparison to how a patient responds after eating, Dr. Sampson has developed a test that would show, with about 95 percent accuracy, if a person will be allergic to peanuts. “We’re hopeful the technology will be as good as it seems it will be,” added Dr. Sampson. The peanut test is expected to be available in the fall of 2019.
— Hugh Sampson, MD, Professor, Pediatrics, Allergy and Immunology, Director Emeritus, Elliot and Roslyn Jaffe Food Allergy Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai