Epidemiology of self-reported drug-induced immediate-type hypersensitivity reactions in the surgical population: a 5-year single-center survey in a romanian allergo-anaesthesia center

AIM: Immediate-type hypersensitivity drug reactions are frequently under-reported, epidemiological data being imprecise. The aim of our study was to identify the drugs involved and to describe the clinical characteristics of previous immediate-type hypersensitivity reactions in a large series of Romanian surgical patients, and to establish the concordance between in vivo and in vitro tests. METHODS: Of the 807 surgical patients referred to our outpatient department of allergo-anaesthesia, we retrospectively enrolled 632 patients with previous drug-induced hypersensitivity reactions. The allergological work-up included a complete allergological history, allergological skin tests and in vitro tests. RESULTS: The drugs involved were: antibiotics in 68% of our patients (with 83.02% being β-lactams), followed by NSAIDs in 43.28% (50.24% of them being metamizol), general anaesthetics in 9.33%, and local anaesthetics or other drugs, each in 6.32% of the 632 patients. The clinical features reported were urticaria in 63.13%, angioedema in 41.77%, bronchospasm in 15.82%, hypotension in 16.61% and cardiovascular collapse in 21.51% of our patients; 31.80% of the referred patients were confirmed as being positive by at least one diagnostic test. The agreement between in vivo tests and BAT was fair (k=0.35), while between in vivo tests and IgE, the concordance was poor (k=0.12). CONCLUSIONS: The data obtained from the patients referred to our clinic without any filters and restrictions indicates the pattern of drug-induced immediate-type hypersensitivity reactions and the most frequently involved drugs in Romania. At the end of the allergological work-up we confirmed 31.80% of our patients as having drug-induced hypesensitivity.