A Case of Adult Onset Cow's Milk Allergy Presenting Beef and Pork Meat Allergy

Abstract

Cow’s milk has been recognized for many years as one of the leading causes of food allergy. The prevalence of cow’s milk allergy is reported to be 1% to 2%. It has been reported that 13~20% of milk allergy children react to beef. We experienced a case of 47-year-old female patient presenting with severe food allergy symptoms including abdominal pain, dizziness, dyspnea, nasal stuffiness and vaginal spotting 2~3 hours after ingestion of cow’s milk, beef, or pork which developed 8 months ago. Laboratory findings showed high total IgE levels (1,295 kU/L) and high specific IgE levels to milk, beef, and pork (3.04 kU/L, 9.26kU/L, and 4.58 kU/L, respectively) using the immuno-CAP system, while allergy skin tests for milk, beef, and pork showed negative results. In bovine serum albumin (BSA) IgE ELISA test, the patient showed a high serum specific IgE binding activity to the BSA compared to healthy controls. She received regular inhaled corticosteroid and antihistamines and restricted ingestion of cow’s milk, beef and pork meats. We report a rare case of adult-onset milk allergy showing concurrent reactivity to beef and pork.