Anaphylactic shock and lethal anaphylaxis caused by compound amino acid solution, a nutritional treatment widely used in China.

Compound amino acid solution (CAAS) is a large class of solution of amino acids' mixture and was widely used in China. Its extensive nutritional treatment was accompanied by a substantial incidence of adverse reactions, especially life-threatening anaphylaxis. However, the adverse reactions were reported in isolated case reports only, and the reasons behind this needed further investigation. The Chinese language papers were searched from China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Wanfang database published in China from 1985 to 2010. The search terms "anaphylactic", "anaphylaxis", "allergic", "allergy", "shock", and "adverse reaction" combined with the term "amino acid" were used. Totally 71 episodes of anaphylactic shock and seven deaths in 38 articles were analyzed. Chest distress and cool extremities were the most common clinical manifestations. Almost all patients suffered from significant hypotension. The vast majority of patients were not found to be allergic to certain substances. CAAS was inappropriately administrated in more than one-third of patients. The life-threatening anaphylaxis was prominently prevalent in pregnant women, the elderly and patients with hypersensitivity such as asthma, and patients without medicinal indication. Innovation of processing technique and establishment of more strict supervision system are an urgent need for CAAS to control its production quality and thus improve its safety in China.