The era of allergy.

Abstract

It is very true that we are living in 'the Era of Allergy'. Era of Allergy: Local and Global Insights and Intervention is the main theme of the Joint Congress of Asia Pacific Association of Allergy, Asthma, and Clinical Immunology (APAAACI) and Asia Pacific Association of Pediatric Allergy, Respiratory, and Immunology (APAPARI) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia during 17th–20th October, 2016 (http://www.apaaaci-kl2016.org). We believe that you can enjoy the state-of-art clinical knowledge and science on allergy, friendship, and the culture of Malaysia during the Joint Congress. Please save the date (early registration until 30th June, 2016)! Drug allergy is increasing as the use of medications increases [1]. What does make drugs recognized as allergens? Yun et al. [2] describe a very nice review article on T-cell-mediated drug hypersensitivity starting from the classical hapten/pro-hapten theory and the danger hypothesis to the pharmacological interaction with immune receptors (p-i) concept and the altered peptide repertoire hypothesis. Readers will also enjoy the current data and the possible mechanisms on the association of HLA alleles and drug hypersensitivity reactions. In this issue of Asia Pacific Allergy, readers will find an article from central China on the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of drug allergy among healthcare practitioners [3]. The authors describe the data from the questionnaire survey and conclude that the education is urgently needed to fill the gap between the current knowledge and the real clinical practice on drug allergy. Allergic rhinitis could be the most common allergic disease of which trends can be traced with Google trends search [4]. Readers will find an article from the Philippines on the Attitudes, practices on allergic rhinitis of three socioeconomic classes of Filipinos in the National Capital Region [5]. Lei et al. [6] described that obesity was a risk factor for allergic rhinitis in children of Wuhan, China. Readers also find a letter from Finland that need for medication and stuffy nose predicted the severity of allergic rhinitis from the comparison of the severity of symptoms using the numeric rating score and the Rhinasthma questionnaire [7]. Asthma can also affect all ages although its prevalence is especially high in childhood and in the elderly [8]. Asthma is important for its prevalence but also for the socioeconomic burden especially according to the severit y and the exacerbations [9,10]. Bathing is an important life style. Some of our patients complain of the exacerbations of asthma symptoms while others say that they feel comfortable when they are taking a bath. Could the humidity and temperature affect the symptoms of asthma while taking a bath? Very interestingly, K amimura et al. [11] conducted an observational study to investigate changes in symptoms and their degree by bathing in asthmatic patients. Atopic dermatitis itself is important for its prevalence and the burden of disease but also important as the initial manifestations of allergic diseases in many patients. Environmental exposure to peanut, such as in house dust, especially with an impaired skin barrier attributed to atopic dermatitis and loss of function mutations in the filaggrin gene, could be a risk factor for sensitization and allergy [12]. In this issue, readers will find a review article on the role of moisturizers for atopic dermatitis with some consensus in our region [13]. Food allergy has been referred to as the second wave of the allergy epidemic and has been an important allergic disease with common food allergens but also some unique food allergens in our region [14]. Murad et al. [15] report a case study of apple seed and grape allergy with sensitisation to non-specific lipid transfer protein from Australia. When you see the patients of allergic diseases, it is very important to take a history on occupation. Asia is a populous and diverse region with various kinds of occupations. In this issue, readers will find a comparative study on the sensitization to silk allergen among workers of silk filatures in India [16].