From the EAACI Bylaws

In order to allow EAACI to influence and keep updated information on matters related to allergy and clinical immunology, it has been decided to create “Interest Groups”. An Interest Group should represent an area of general interest within allergology that is not well covered by any one of the EAACI Sections.

One of the most enigmatic areas of allergy is that of drug hypersensitivity reactions: they go far beyond pure IgE-mediated reactions and are fascinating since they can mimic many different diseases. In the daily praxis, the handling of patients with a presumed drug hypersensitivity is a continuing challenge. Knowledge about the pathophysiology of the reactions is limited, and diagnostic tests are often not standardised resulting in insecurity for many allergologists when treating such patients. The Drug Allergy Interest Group focuses on the improvement of the testing for these patients and involves many different groups from all over Europe, with a high number of allergologists from Austria, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Switzerland. The core group of these IG is called ENDA (European Network of Drug Allergy), and comprises active participants with a research interest e.g. in the epidemiological, clinical, or fundamental aspects of drug hypersensitivity. One immediate primary is to improve testing procedures for certain groups of patients. Penicillin allergy is still the predominant allergy encountered in daily praxis: a task force has tried to establish the roles of how to perform immediate and delayed testing corresponding to the clinical picture. In addition, we discuss drug provocation testing and its limits and applications.

The Interest Group is open to everybody and all are welcome to provide suggestions on topics. In addition, we have a co-group, which comprises representatives mainly active in the different task forces (originally from the previously established European Network of Drug Allergy). The people of the co-group meet twice per year: once at the EAACI Meeting, and in addition we have a regular meeting every autumn, where the task forces meet and make a small presentation on drug allergy.

Board 2009-2011

Chairperson
Knut Brockow
Germany
knut.brockow@lrz.tum.de

Secretary
Ingrid Terreehorst
The Netherlands
iter1@xs4all.nl

Webmaster
Javier Fernandez
fernandez_jav@gva.es

 

 

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