INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana — If there's one truth that David R. Stukus, MD, has come to realize from his 2 years as director of a food allergy treatment center, it's that food allergies in children and adolescents are grossly overdiagnosed and misdiagnosed.
"When they're given a diagnosis of food allergy, many families do not receive proper education to help them understand the risk as well as self-management and prognosis," he said at the annual meeting of the Society for Pediatric Dermatology. "They are left to fend for themselves, which leads to increased anxiety. If they don't understand what it means to manage their child's food allergy, they're going to think that they're a ticking time bomb," said Stukus, director of the Food Allergy Treatment Center and professor of pediatrics in the division of allergy and immunology at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
During his presentation, he toured clinicians through best practices to diagnose and treat food allergies and shared cautionary tales of unsupported claims, unnecessary testing, and potential harm to misdiagnosed patients.
While food allergies can be serious and life-threatening, they are also manageable, he continued. It doesn't mean that children with food allergies can't go to school, attend baseball games, or participate in activities that any other child would.
