Baby's allergy tests show discrepancies

Kirk Hargreaves/The Press

IN DOUBT: Anna-Maree Milroy holds the Medlab South test report she is challenging.

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A Canterbury mother is reintroducing forbidden foods into her baby's diet after learning that a diagnostic test suggesting he had food allergies was wrong.

Anna-Maree Milroy believes the skin-prick test, used to confirm food allergies by exposing broken skin to various allergens, was administered incorrectly by Medlab South.

It denies a problem with the test procedure, but cannot explain why the test results do not match others obtained later.

Milroy took son Nathanto a Medlab South clinic in Christchurch for his first test in July at her GP's recommendation.

The results revealed Nathan was "very atopic (prone to hypersensitive reactions)" and should avoid pork, beef, cow's milk, egg white, soybean, peas, wheat, rice and peanuts.

"I was devastated. I was just in disbelief that he couldn't have all those foods and what was I going to feed him? It was really horrible," Milroy said.

A month later, she took her son for another test at the same clinic, which revealed the 15-month-old boy has no reactions to five of the foods. Milroy sought the second test because she noticed that the blade the nurse used to pierce the skin during the first test was not wiped clean between allergens, potentially causing cross-contamination and explaining the different results.

Medlab South service manager Diane Annan said she could not comment on the result discrepancies, but was confident both tests had been administered correctly.

"We are very confident in our staff training, with their training and procedures, that they are doing all that correctly," she said. "I'm very confident with the way that the procedure is carried out."

However, the case was being reviewed with Medlab's allergens consultant, she said.

Christchurch Hospital immunology specialist John O'Donnell said skin-prick tests should normally deliver similar results for a patient. Problems arose if the allergens were stored incorrectly, or if the blade was not wiped between each skin prick, causing contamination, he said.

Skin-prick tests were useful to confirm suspected food allergies but could return false positive results, he said.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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Anna   #1   05:26 pm Jan 28 2009

I "know" the test was done incorrectly because I was there and I saw the failure to wipe the blade. My son was quite calm during the procedure. The nurse didnt have gloves on. Medlab admitted their failure and have since recalled paitents in to be retested. I have also heard they are now using seperate blades for each droplet.

My son is not reacting to food and is doing well. Subsequent testing has proven very little reactions.

Medlab DID get it wrong and the public had to know about it. I am happy with the outcome... it's just a shame Medlab staff sat on their hands and didn't act until it went to the paper.

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