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Oilseed rape allergy: is it significant? An investigation into its prevalence in an East Anglian population, UK

Background

Oilseed rape production is widespread in East Anglia. Many patients attending our rhinology clinic for seasonal allergy claim that they are allergic to it.

Aim

To determine the prevalence of oil-seed rape allergy in our population.

Population

General population attending a rhinology and allergy clinic in an East Anglian district general hospital, UK.

Methods and materials

Retrospective chart analysis. The results of 1475 consecutive patients who underwent skin prick allergy testing over a 2-year period were analysed.

Results

Allergy to grass pollen was found to be most common (n=375, 25.1%) followed by house dust mite (n=373, 25%) and cereals (n=301, 20.1%). Oilseed rape allergy was relatively uncommon, comprising only 1.89% of the population tested (n=28).

Discussion

Despite the abundance of oil-seed rape in our geographical region, it does not seem to be responsible for most of our cases of seasonal allergy. Other environmental factors may be contributory.

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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Trinidade, A., Kumar, S., Farboud, A. et al. Oilseed rape allergy: is it significant? An investigation into its prevalence in an East Anglian population, UK. All Asth Clin Immun 6 (Suppl 1), P2 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1186/1710-1492-6-S1-P2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1710-1492-6-S1-P2

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