What Do the Guidelines Mean to Practitioners and Patients?
"If you are a practitioner who routinely sees patients with possible food allergy, you can compare your approach with the guidelines and make sure that you are consistent with the best practices outlined in the report," commented Dr. Fenton. User-friendly features, such as a table of contents, a shorter summary report, and a cross-referenced online version should all make it easy to find the information you need.
"Improving the quality of life of patients is the goal of the guidelines, and to reduce food-allergy associated morbidity and mortality," concluded Dr. Bahna. As food allergy research leads to new discoveries, even greater gains for patients may follow. For example, explained Dr. Bahna, "We need more homogeneity in appropriately diagnosing food allergy and laboratory tests that can identify the specific component of food that causes allergy, and perhaps predict the severity of manifestation, the prognosis, and cross-reactivities among foods or other allergens. We also hope to have protocols for effective and safe immunotherapy for desensitizing patients or building tolerance. These are some of the major issues for the future of food allergy management."
Medscape Allergy & Immunology © 2010 WebMD, LLC
Cite this: Laura A. Stokowski. Food Allergy: The Definitive Guide to Clinical Practice - Medscape - Dec 17, 2010.
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