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New blood test offers improved diagnosis of peanut allergies

Tuesday 15th May 2018
A new blood test has been developed to diagnose peanut allergies more safely and accurately than ever before.
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Researchers have developed a new type of blood test that could be used to diagnose peanut allergies in a safer and more accurate way than current methods allow.

A team from the King's College London School of Immunology and Microbial Sciences and the Medical Research Council (MRC) have created a method called the mast activation test (MAT), which has the potential to be used to evaluate a variety of food allergy types.

At present, allergy diagnosis relies on tools such as skin-prick tests, which can result in over-diagnosis. Indeed, only 22 per cent of school-aged children in the UK who test positively for peanut allergies via this method actually prove to be allergic when fed the food in a monitored setting.

Feeding tests are also sometimes used in a diagnostic setting, but this can be time-consuming and runs the risk of leading to a severe allergic reaction or anaphylactic shock.

By contrast, the MAT method works by focusing on mast cells, which are activated in the presence of immunoglobulin E, the antibody that causes allergic reactions through its interaction with peanut proteins. By detecting biomarkers associated with this reaction, the MAT can deliver an accurate diagnosis with no risk of false-positives or allergic responses, while also being five times more cost-effective than the feeding test.

Study leader Dr Alexandra Santos, an MRC clinician scientist from King's College London's Peter Gorer Department of Immunobiology, said: "We are adapting this test to other foods, such as milk, eggs, sesame and tree nuts. This test will be useful as we are seeing more and more children who have never been exposed to these foods because they have severe eczema or have siblings with allergies."

Written by Martin Lambert

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