Around 15% of hospitalized patients report a penicillin allergy, yet <3% of individuals
are found to have a significant immune-mediated allergy on testing.
1
,
2
,
3
Furthermore, at least 80% of individuals with immunoglobulin E (IgE)-mediated allergy
to penicillin lose their allergy after 10 years of avoidance of the drug.
1
,
2
,
3
Despite low likelihood of significant risk, most adults labeled with penicillin allergy
go on to lifelong avoidance of the drug class, driving unnecessary use of alternative
antibiotics that may be less effective, have greater associated adverse events, and
cost more to the medical system.
4
,
5
,
6
,
7
Keywords
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: March 22, 2022
Footnotes
Funding: No financial support was received in preparation of this manuscript.
Conflicts of Interest: Authors have no commercial or other associated conflicts of interest to disclose.
Authorship: All authors had access to the data and participated in writing this manuscript. The manuscript was reviewed in its entirety in preparation for submission by the submitting authors on December 7, 2021.
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