Adequacy and tolerance to ass's milk in an Italian cohort of children with cow's milk allergy

Riccardina Tesse,Lucio Armenio,Claudia Paglialunga,Serena Braccio

doi:10.1186/1824-7288-35-19

Riccardina Tesse, Lucio Armenio + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/1824-7288-35-19

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Abstract

BackgroundThe therapy for cow's milk proteins allergy (CMPA) consists in eliminating cow's milk proteins (CMP) from the child's diet. Ass's milk (AM) has been recently considered as substitute of CMP. This prospective study investigated tolerance and nutritional adequacy of AM in children with CMPA from Southern Italy.MethodsThirty children (aged 6 months to 11 years) with suspected CMPA were enrolled. They underwent skin prick tests and bouble-blind, placebo controlled food challenge to CMP. After confirming the diagnosis of CMPA, patients received fresh AM in a open challenge. Specific serum CMP and AM IgE, and biochemical parameters in blood were also assessed. Auxological evaluations were performed in all subjects at entry (T0) and after 4–6 months (T1) of AM intake.ResultsTwenty-five children resulted elegible for the study, and 24 out of 25 subjects (96%) tolerated AM at the food challenge. Auxological data resulted improved by the end of the study in all patients, while blood biochemical parameters did not vary during the follow-up.ConclusionOur data confirm the high rate of AM tolerability in children with moderate symptoms of CMPA. Moreover, we found that AM seems to have nutritional adequacy in subjects with a varied diet.

Highlights

Cow's milk protein allergy (CMPA) is a common disease occurring in childhood and its prevalence approximates 3% during the first 3 years of life [1]
We aimed to investigate the Ass's milk (AM) tolerability and nutitional adequacy in children with cow's milk proteins allergy (CMPA) from Apulia, a Southern Italy region where AM is readily available and frequently used in healthy children
The CMPA was confirmed with DBPCFC in 28 children

Summary

Introduction

Cow's milk protein allergy (CMPA) is a common disease occurring in childhood and its prevalence approximates 3% during the first 3 years of life [1]. The therapy for CMPA consists in eliminating cow's milk proteins (CMP) from the child's diet. Hydrolyzed formulas (eHF) are currently the most used substitutes of CMP They have a good nutritional value, but are not tolerated by all patients with CMPA, are quite expensive and present poor palatability. There are not reccommended for the tratment of young children with CMPA because of the potential to evoke allergic reactions [3] For these reasons, other mammalian milks have been considered to replace cow's milk (CM), including ass's (page number not for citation purposes). Ass's milk (AM) has been recently considered as substitute of CMP

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