Yoghurt loading test in children with cow's milk allergy

In children, one of the causes of the food allergy is cows' milk and it is encountered very often. In our country, compared with cows' milk, there is a remarkable consumption of yoghurt. Yoghurt is a product made of cows' milk, but the milk proteins are modified during the production process. The objective of our study is to determine the tolerability of yoghurt in children allergy to cows' milk proteins. We enrolled 34 patients between the ages of 0-5 diagnosed with cows' milk allergy through a food loading test in our outpatient clinic of the Pediatric Allergy and Immunology in the hospital of the Gaziantep University. In these children, we analysed hemogram, milk-specific IgE,total IgE and we performed skin prick tests for commercial milk, natural milk and yoghurt. We performed oral yoghurt challenge test to these patients. We determined the presence of any reaction and registered all observed reactions. Regarding the medical history of the patients; in 10 patients (29.4 %) wheezing, in 22 patients (58.9 %) skin manifestations, in 4 patients (11.7 %) gastro-intestinal symptoms were in the forefront. We observed that 17 of the 34 patients tolerated yoghurt in yoghurt challenge test. There was a significiantly difference in the cow's milk- specific IgE levels of the patients tolerated and non-tolerated yoghurt(p=0,016) . In our study, we revealed that there was no statistical difference between in each groups when we compared the groups about eosinophil counts(p=0,85). By the way, there was no significant in ages of two groups(p=0,60). There was also nonsignificant difference regarding the endurances performed with the skin tests for commercial milk, fresh milk and fresh yoghurt between two groups. According to our study, we suggested that some allergic children against to the cow's milk may eat yoghurt without prohibiting. These results may be an important contribution to the allergy literature.