FOOD ALLERGY IN YOUNG CHILDREN

Management of young children suffering from food allergy (FA) is currently one of the most difficult problems in pediatric allergology. The prevalence of FA in the first year of life, according to most researchers, is approximately 6-10%. At this age, hypersensitivity to almost any food product is possible, but the most common allergic reactions are to cow's milk, chicken eggs, fish, wheat, and soy. The first foreign protein introduced into a child's diet is usually cow's milk, and allergy to cow's milk proteins (CMP) is the most common cause of FA in young children. The prevalence of allergy to CMP is 2-3% [1]. Symptoms of allergy to CMP are nonspecific. Given the proven importance of CMP (dairy products) in the development of clinical manifestations of allergic diseases, their elimination seems to be the most rational.This is due to the possibility of non-IgE-mediated reactions, low reliability of allergy testing results before 6 months of age, impossibility of interpreting low concentrations of specific IgE, etc. It should be emphasized that there are certain disagreements in the informativeness of determining sensitization to components (proteins) of cow's milk. For example, A. Castro and A. Pastorino argue that determining sIgE to whole milk is more rational than determining sensitization to individual fractions [2]. At the same time, in our opinion, in clinical practice, especially in children of the first year of life, the use of component diagnostics has obvious advantages: the choice of a highly hydrolytic mixture, prognosis of the course of the disease, the earliest possible introduction of the excluded product, etc. [3]. Allergy to chicken eggs is detected in approximately 1.5–2% of children in the first 3 years of life [4].