title: Component-resolved diagnostics in food allergy.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this paper is to review and discuss recent studies on component-resolved diagnostics in food allergy, involving panels of pure allergen molecules or arrays of peptides derived from allergen sequences, and to summarize the reporting of new food allergens during the past 2 years.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Several component-resolved diagnostic studies in food allergy suggest that the use of panels of allergen molecules may allow refined clinical information to be obtained on the likelihood or severity of an allergic food reaction and regarding diagnostic specificity. Further, in some studies the use of pure allergen molecules has led to a clearly higher sensitivity of the immunoglobulin E immunoassay compared with conventional allergen extracts.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  While common diagnostic methods in allergy assess the presence or absence of allergen-specific sensitization, to date, no in-vitro or in-vivo test exists which exhibits full correlation with clinical food allergy. A multitude of recently reported findings and observations indicate that molecular analysis of allergen sensitization pattern may serve to enhance the clinical utility of immunoglobulin E antibody-based allergy diagnostics. Pure natural and recombinant allergen molecules as well as panels of synthetic peptides have been used for this purpose.
authors: Phadia AB, Research & Development Department, Uppsala, Sweden.
authors: Jonas
authors: J
authors: Lidholm
authors: Barbara K
authors: BK
authors: Ballmer-Weber
authors: Adriano
authors: A
authors: Mari
authors: Stefan
authors: S
authors: Vieths