Infant anaphylaxis and epinephrine use: Can we improve acute management?

Background: Anaphylaxis is a serious systemic hypersensitivity reaction that is rapid in onset and may cause death.

Methods: The true prevalence of infant anaphylaxis is unknown, but such cases may be increasing in presentation of these patients to emergency departments, with studies that evaluate health-care utilization after implementation of early introduction guidelines that report an increase in the use of emergency department for food-related visits as well as an increase in epinephrine prescriptions for infants.

Results: Reasons for these increases may include early food introduction as well as therapeutic interventions such as early life or preschool oral immunotherapy.

Conclusion: Infant anaphylaxis presents many diagnostic challenges, including poor recognition attributable to confusing signs and symptoms that may be age specific, and risk for inadequate acute management.