[Drug allergies: management and current aspects]

Abstract

ALLERGIC AND PSEUDOALLERGIC REACTIONS: Adverse drug reactions occur in 1 to 3% of hospitalized patients and 10% are due to allergic and pseudoallergic reactions. Allergic reactions are unpredictable reactions related to immunologic mechanism. Pseudoallergic reactions mimic allergic reactions but no drug-specific antibody or T cell proliferation can be demonstrated.

Prevention: We are lacking clinical and biological tools and the available ones still need to be validated. However, a precise diagnosis is required in order to set up prevention measures. We focus here on some basic and new data concerning these reactions, in particular epidemiological studies, mechanisms and diagnostic methods.