To the Editor: Yoshino et al. [1] report a case of anaphylactic shock in a surgeon due to latex. Latex allergy appears to be a growing threat to health care professionals. Direct skin contact is known to provoke anaphylaxis, but we recently witnessed a case where the hospital environment itself seriously affected the health of a latex-sensitive individual. A 30-year-old male anesthesia nurse with history of atopic allergy developed severe anaphylactic shock after eating bananas and later wearing rubber gloves. He responded well to usual treatment. The skin prick test with latex was positive, and the radioallergosorbent test level was 2.13 AU/mL (Class II). Peak flow values were significantly reduced during the night (P < 0.035) and day shift (P < 0.001) in comparison with off-duty hours Figure 1.Figure 1: Peak flow during working hours and off-duty time. There is a significant difference in the peak flow values.This hospital employee suffered a dramatic anaphylactic reaction after contact with latex. The ingestion of bananas may have been contributory [2]. During working hours, he was continuously exposed to air contaminated by latex particles, leading to measurable deterioration in respiration. Besides the employee avoiding direct contact with latex-containing products, the number of airborne latex particles must be reduced to a minimum by careful handling of surgical gloves (e.g., removing them under a running tap). Although latex allergy is well known, the documentation by spirometry may be a useful tool to diagnose and monitor (e.g., the rate of recovery) latex allergy in health care workers. Christoph Konrad, MD Tanja Fieber, MD Guido Schupfer, MD, MBA, HSG Institute of Anesthesiology Kantonsspital CH-6000 Lucerne 16, Switzerland