The so-called angioneurotic edema

Abstract

At the Allergy Clinic of the University Hospital, Copenhagen, 132 patients have, in the period from 1942 to 1951, attended the Clinic for acute circumscribed edema. Of these patients 91 were female and 41 male. The distribution as to age shows a maximum in the age group from 30 to 50 years. In 73 patients (55 per cent of the series) an unquestionable allergic etiology could be demonstrated on the basis of anamnesis, exposure tests, skin tests, and elimination treatment. No diagnosis was made on the basis of only one criterion, the diagnoses having been verified on at least two of the mentioned criteria, and in every case the course has been carefully surveyed for at least one year. In 24 patients (18 per cent) an allergic etiology was presumed, but could not be verified with certainty. In the remaining 35 patients (27 per cent) no etiological cause could be demonstrated. Of the 73 patients in whom an allergic etiology was demonstrated, 38 cases were due to drug allergy, in particular acetylsalicylic acid and barbituric acid compounds; 18 cases were due to food allergy; 11 cases were caused by inhalant or contact allergy; two cases were due to insect allergy, another two to bacterial allergy, one to endocrine allergy, and one to physical allergy. There is no reason to designate these patients as “neurotics” and therefore the term angioneurotic edema had better be discarded. The future may justify the term of “allergic edema,” but till then I would prefer a more neutral term (Quincke's edema, circumscribed edema, or angioedema).