Cases of systemic immediate-type urticaria associated with acellular diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccination.

The authors found eight children who had systemic urticaria within 30 min after administration of acellular diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccines which contain gelatin as a stabilizer. The authors measured the specific IgE to gelatin and DTP toxoids in their sera, and found that none of the children had anti-gelatin IgE. Of the eight children, two had detectable levels of anti-toxoid IgE. As a negative control, of the 10 children who showed no allergic reaction to the acellular DTP vaccines, four also had detectable levels of anti-toxoid IgE. From these results, there was no obvious relationship between the specific IgE to the vaccine's component proteins and systemic urticaria to acellular DTP vaccines.