- Meeting abstract
- Open access
- Published:
Anaphylaxis associated with folic acid: domestic case review
Allergy, Asthma & Clinical Immunology volume 10, Article number: A23 (2014)
Methods
A search of the Canada Vigilance Database from April 1, 2008 to August 31, 2013 identified 15 cases of anaphylaxis and 16 reports of serious non-anaphylactic allergic reactions.
Results
All 15 cases of anaphylaxis involved multi ingredient products with NHP doses (up to and including 1 mg). Fourteen cases were female (93%). One case of anaphylaxis and 3 cases of serious allergic reaction involved women taking prenatal supplements, two of which reported spontaneous abortion. There was insufficient case information available to assess any causal association between the allergic reaction and the fetal loss. Three medically important cases involved pharmaceutical doses of folic acid (5 mg), one of which was a pediatric case involving a multi ingredient intravenous total parental nutrition product (Multi-12/K1 pediatric) containing folic acid.
Confirmatory allergy tests for folic acid were not available for any of the cases. None of the reports noted a known diagnosis of folic acid allergy.
Conclusions
Folic acid allergy appears to be rare and would not be expected to be well known among health providers or consumers. Increasing awareness amongst health providers regarding folic acid allergy may improve the identification and counselling of patients with this allergy.
References
Dykewicz MS, Orfan NA, Sun W: In vitro demonstration of IgE antibody to folate-albumin in anaphylaxis from folic acid. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2000, 106: 386-89. 10.1067/mai.2000.108502.
Smith J, Empson M, Wall C: Recurrent anaphylaxis to synthetic folic acid. The Lancet. 2007, 370: 652-
Jandus P: Anaphylaxis to supplemental folic acid. Allergy. 2012, 67: 260-1.
Stoevesandt J, Brocker E, Trautmann A: Folic acid allergy: no breakfast cereal hazard. EJD. 2011, 21: 280-1.
HC: Health Canada: Monograph: Folate. 2009, Ottawa (ON): Health Canada, [http://webprod.hc-sc.gc.ca/nhpid-bdipsn/monoReq.do?id=90]
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
About this article
Cite this article
Kerr, P.E., Cunningham, D. Anaphylaxis associated with folic acid: domestic case review. All Asth Clin Immun 10 (Suppl 2), A23 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1186/1710-1492-10-S2-A23
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1710-1492-10-S2-A23