Avances en el diagnóstico y tratamiento de las enfermedades alérgicas

199 páginas.Entre el 20% y el 25% de la población mundial sufre alguna enfermedad alérgica. Los nuevos avances en el campo de la alergología han permitido que se clasifiquen, diagnostiquen y traten mejor estas enfermedades, mejorando claramente la calidad de vida de todas aquellas personas que las padecen. Los médicos de atención primaria (médicos de familia y pediatras) suelen ser los encargados de atender en primera instancia al paciente alérgico, intentando instaurar un tratamiento que ayude a controlar su enfermedad, siendo necesaria la derivación al alergólogo cuando esto no es posible. Por ello es de vital importancia que el médico de atención primaria conozca todas las novedades diagnósticas y de tratamiento de las enfermedades alérgicas, para poder identificar cuáles son los pacientes que más se beneficiarían de un diagnóstico y tratamiento más preciso por parte del alergólogo. De igual modo, no hay que olvidar la importancia de establecer una estrategia integral, basada en la colaboración directa entre todos los profesionales sanitarios pueden estar implicados de una forma u otra en el manejo del paciente alérgico (médicos de familia, médicos de urgencias, dermatólogos, pediatras, neumólogos, etc.), lo que claramente redundará en una mejora sustancial de su salud

¿Cómo debemos actuar ante un caso de anafilaxia?

págs. 128-145Capítulo incluido en el libro: Avances en el diagnóstico y tratamiento de las enfermedades alérgicas. Manuel Alcántara Villar (coordinador). Sevilla: Universidad Internacional de Andalucía, 2022. ISBN 978-84-7993-376-0. Enlace: http://hdl.handle.net/10334/615

Quality of life in patients with food allergy

Food allergy has increased in developed countries and can have a dramatic effect on quality of life, so as to provoke fatal reactions. We aimed to outline the socioeconomic impact that food allergy exerts in this kind of patients by performing a complete review of the literature and also describing the factors that may influence, to a greater extent, the quality of life of patients with food allergy and analyzing the different questionnaires available. Hitherto, strict avoidance of the culprit food(s) and use of emergency medications are the pillars to manage this condition. Promising approaches such as specific oral or epicutaneous immunotherapy and the use of monoclonal antibodies are progressively being investigated worldwide. However, even that an increasing number of centers fulfill those approaches, they are not fully implemented enough in clinical practice. The mean annual cost of health care has been estimated in international dollars (I$) 2016 for food-allergic adults and I$1089 for controls, a difference of I$927 (95$324–I$1530). A similar result was found for adults in each country, and for children, and interestingly, it was not sensitive to baseline demographic differences. Cost was significantly related to severity of illness in cases in nine countries. The constant threat of exposure, need for vigilance and expectation of outcome can have a tremendous impact on quality of life. Several studies have analyzed the impact of food allergy on health-related quality of life (HRQL) in adults and children in different countries. There have been described different factors that could modify HRQL in food allergic patients, the most important of them are perceived disease severity, age of the patient, peanut or soy allergy, country of origin and having allergy to two or more foods. Over the last few years, several different specific Quality of Life questionnaires for food allergic patients have been developed and translated to different languages and cultures. It is important to perform lingual and cultural translations of existent questionnaires in order to ensure its suitability in a specific region or country with its own socioeconomic reality and culture. Tools aimed at assessing the impact of food allergy on HRQL should be always part of the diagnostic work up, in order to provide a complete basal assessment, to highlight target of intervention as well as to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions designed to cure food allergy. HRQL may be the only meaningful outcome measure available for food allergy measuring this continuous burden