An improved prick skin-test procedure for young children.

The prick method of skin testing is advantageous for young children because of the decreased risk of anaphylaxis and less patient discomfort. Some would argue, however, that the necessity of keeping extract drops at the skin-test sites makes prick testing impractical compared with intradermal testing for squirming youngsters. Since the literature is not clear concerning the length of time extract must be present at the prick site, we performed duplicate sets of prick tests with five concentrations of ragweed extract on 16 ragweed-sensitive adults. For one set of tests, the drops were removed immediately after the skin had been pricked; for the other set, extracts remained at the site for 15 min. After 15 min we recorded the size of the wheal and flare response for each test. On the basis of analysis of these paired observations, we concluded that there is no significant difference between these two methods of administering prick skin tests.