Drug allergic reactions: Current views (Review)

Abstract

More than 7% of population suffer from drug allergy. Cases of heavy life-threatening allergic reactions are well known. In this review current considerations of mechanisms of drug immune hypersensitivity development are presented, the main clinical forms and methods of diagnosing drug allergy are described. Drug allergy is diagnosed with specific in vivo tests (skin prick test, intradermal test, patch test, provocation tests) and in vitro tests (determination of specific IgE to medications, test for basophil activation, reactions of leucocyte blast transformation, quantitative determination of cytokines and other proteins, e.g. granzyme and tryptase in peripheral blood). However, not all of these methods are available in real clinical practice, the list of commercial kits for diagnosis of drug allergy is limited. Therefore, it is especially important in patient management to rely on history-taking and general clinical examination data, to consider the available information on association of drug allergy and infections caused by viruses of herpes-group, especially in children population, on hereditary predisposition to some kinds of drug allergy.