How reliable are commercial allergy tests?
The ability to diagnose allergic disease was studied in 9 fish-allergic and 9 control subjects, who provided specimens of blood and hair for testing. All fish-allergic subjects had previously been shown at Guy's Hospital to have a positive skin prick test to fish. The specimens were submitted as coded, duplicate samples to five laboratories which all offer a commercial service in carrying out diagnostic tests for allergy. All five laboratories were not only unable to diagnose fish allergy but also reported many allergies in apparently non-allergic subjects and provided inconsistent results on duplicate samples from the same subject.
D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D005399:Fishes; D005512:Food Hypersensitivity / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006197:Hair / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D008131:London; D008297:Male; D011786:Quality Control