New lung, new allergy to peanuts
SOMETIMES people just really want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And, as long as you’re not allergic to the ingredients, that’s totally fine. At least, that’s what one woman thought.
The 68-year-old woman, who had never had a peanut allergy, had a severe allergic reaction to the sandwich, according to a recent report of her case, published in the journal
But someone else did have a peanut allergy: the donor who supplied the woman with a transplant lung.
It’s a very rare occurrence for lung transplant recipients to acquire a food allergy from a donor organ, said lead case report author Dr Mazen Odish, a fellow in pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of California San Diego Medical Centre, who treated the woman.
There have been only four or five reports in which organ recipients acquired peanut allergies with anaphylaxis following a lung transplant, Odish told Live Science.
Although it’s rare for food allergies to be transferred, it does occur: cases of food allergies being acquired have been reported after liver, kidney, lung, bone marrow, heart and kidney transplants, the authors wrote. Fox News