title: Prevention of chymopapain anaphylaxis by screening chemonucleolysis candidates with cutaneous chymopapain testing.
abstract: With chymopapain at a concentration of 10 mg/ml, the authors skin tested 540 chemonucleolysis candidates; six were positive, and 534 were negative. None of the positive patients received therapeutic injections of chymopapain. There were no instances of unequivocal anaphylaxis to chymopapain in the patients with negative skin tests treated with chymopapain. When this 0% incidence of systemic reactions in skin test negative patients is compared with the historical rate of 1%, this difference is statistically significant (p less than 0.05). Restriction of chymopapain treatment to patients with negative prick tests can reduce the incidence of systemic reactions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, Illinois 60611.
authors.forename: L C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Grammer
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schafer
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bernstein
authors.forename: I L
authors.initials: IL
authors.lastname: Bernstein
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Cogen
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dolovich
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schatz
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zeiger
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Shaughnessy
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gutt
mesh_terms: D000707:Anaphylaxis / Q000139:chemically induced / Q000517:prevention & control*; D002917:Chymopapain / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000276:immunology; D004342:Drug Hypersensitivity / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D006801:Humans; D007073:Immunoglobulin E / Q000276:immunology; D007074:Immunoglobulin G / Q000276:immunology; D007404:Intervertebral Disc Chemolysis / Q000009:adverse effects*; D007428:Intradermal Tests; D012882:Skin Tests
chemical_list: D007074:Immunoglobulin G; D007073:Immunoglobulin E; D002917:Chymopapain