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Penicillin Allergies May Not Be Forever
| Article
# : |
18725 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1991 |
1,924 Words |
| Author
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Marjorie Centofanti
Marjorie Centofanti is a free-lance medical writer. She is the
winner of the 1991 American Medical Writers Association annual
award for excellence in medical writing. |
Penicillin. The name evokes feelings of trust and security that corporate America can only long for. Since the 1940s, the low-cost well-tolerated drug has cured millions worldwide of lesser ills like earaches and strep throats. For those with life-threatening diseases--meningitis, brain abscesses, syphilis, or heart inflammation--penicillin or its well-known analogues such as amoxycillin or ampicillin still remain antibiotics of choice.
Yet for a significant number of people penicillin is anything but a good choice. Within minutes after pills or shots, they erupt in red, itching hives or may later develop an annoying rash. Every year from 300 to 500 people in the United States die from penicillin-induced anaphylactic shock--the sudden, whole-system allergic reaction that can kill by simultaneously dilating blood vessels throughout the body. Blood pressure drops so low that vital tissues are deprived of oxygen.
Epidemiologists figure that around 10 percent of people worldwide are in some way allergic to penicillin, with numbers varying according to the population studied. "This allergy is unfortunate," says Dr. Louis Mendelson, a pediatric allergist with the University of Connecticut, "because it means many people--especially kids--end up getting a more toxic, more expensive, and less effective antibiotic for their illness."
It is even more unfortunate for cystic fibrosis patients, for example, who've become antibiotic resistant from years of taking other drugs and for whom penicillin is a last resort for a major lung infection. Or for pregnant women with syphilis who need the drug because it protects the unborn without engendering birth defects, as can other therapies.
A surprising find
Recently, however, allergy researchers in the United States have uncovered a fact that may make penicillin safely available to the hundreds now avoiding it. "Simply put," says Dr. N. Franklin Adkinson, immunologist and professor at Johns Hopkins, "we're finding that penicillin allergies may not last forever."
Adkinson surveyed large numbers of in- and outpatients at Johns Hopkins Hospital and found a not-surprising 10 percent reported past allergic responses to penicillin. But when he and coworkers administered a skin test for sensitivity to the drug, more than 80 percent of the "allergic" patients came up negative. That meant they could now take
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