Immunogenicity of hydrolysate formulas in children (Part 2): 41 case reports.

Hydrolysate formulas (HF) have been developed with the purpose of reducing the allergenicity of cow's milk proteins, thus providing a suitable formula for feeding babies with cow's milk (CM) allergy (CMA). More recently, used for the treatment of CMA HFs have provoked 211 reactions in babies at high risk of atopy . In this paper we report 81 babies, who attended the Allergy and Clinical Immunology Division of the Pediatric Department of Rome University "La Sapienza" (study children) between June 1997 and October 1998, 41 of whom were tested with Nidina HA (a whey partial HF) and 40 with whole CM. Ninety-seven healthy children with no history of atopy of comparable age and sex formed the control group. All study children reacted to Nidina HA and to CM with similar symptoms. All the control babies tested negative. With these 41 case reports the number of reactions to HFs totals 252. These data strongly indicate that partial HFs may be allergenic not only in an already sensitized individual, but also immunogenic in a predisposed baby.