Combined skin prick and patch testing enhances identification of peanut-allergic patients with atopic dermatitis.

BACKGROUND: Food atopy patch tests (APTs) are considered a useful tool for the diagnosis of food allergy. Hypersensitivity to peanuts has not been investigated by means of APTs so far.
METHODS: APTs and skin prick tests (SPTs) with peanuts were performed in 136 atopic dermatitis (AD) patients. Relevance of positive and negative responses to these tests was assessed by repeated open challenges with peanuts.
RESULTS: Nine percent of our AD patients reacted to the challenge. Positive responses to APTs were recorded in 19% of the patients, whereas in 12% positive SPTs were observed. APTs were more frequently positive in subjects with eczematous responses after challenge with respect to those with urticarial reactions. SPT reactivity proved to be higher in patients above 12 years of age, whereas APT positivity was more frequent in children under 6 years. APT sensitivity proved significantly higher than SPT sensitivity, in particular in children under 12 years of age. On the contrary, SPT specificity and positive predictive value were significantly higher with respect to those of APT in the age group of subjects under 6 years of age.
CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that APTs with peanuts may represent a useful integration to standard testing modalities employed for the diagnosis of peanut allergy in AD patients.