Basophil activation test in the food allergy clinic: its current use and future applications

Abstract

Introduction: The basophil activation test (BAT) has shown evidence of high sensitivity and high specificity to support the diagnosis of IgE-mediated allergy. It is a functional test that uses live cells analyzed by flow cytometry and thus needs to be performed within 24h of blood collection. BAT has shown to be reproducible and reliable when tested in a clinical diagnostic laboratory with standardized protocols and flow cytometry settings.

Areas covered: In this review, we summarize the evidence to support clinical use of BAT and the next steps required for clinical implementation for an improve clinical care for patients with suspected IgE-mediated food allergy.

Expert opinion: BAT has recently been included in Clinical Guidelines of Food Allergy Diagnosis and its implementation in clinical practice depends largely on availability. Proposed clinical applications of the BAT include: distinction between food allergy and asymptomatic IgE sensitization; determination of food allergic status to peanut, tree nuts and seeds in polysensitized children; evaluation of tolerance to baked egg and baked milk in egg and milk allergic children; identification of patients at high-risk of severe allergic reactions; monitoring for spontaneous resolution of food allergy; confirmation of eligibility for specific treatments of food allergy; prediction and monitoring of response to immunomodulatory treatments.

Keywords: Basophil; IgE; anaphylaxis; basophil activation test; biomarker; diagnosis; food allergy; prediction.