Epidemiology of cow’s milk allergy and its tolerance in children more than one year old

Introduction: allergy to cow’s milk (CM) proteins is a frequent condition in the first year of life and its incidence seems to be increasing in the developed countries.

Objectives: to study the accumulated prevalence of IgE-mediated cow’s milk allergy (CMA) in children more than one year old at primary care, and tolerance development and factors that can be associated to it.

Material and methods: retrospective study of (2,805) clinical histories of patients under 14 years in a primary health centre.

Results: we found cow’s milk allergy in 2.35% (66); 57.6% were able to tolerate CM at an average age of 34.6 months. We did not find any factors associated to the development of tolerance. Children who did not suffer respiratory symptoms tended to reach tolerance earlier but there was not statistical significance.

Conclusions: we found a high prevalence of IgE-mediated CMA in primary care. The probability to develop tolerance to CM falls with age being the maximum in the second and third years of life. Carrying out an appropriated diagnosis is needed for patient and family comfort and for avoiding unnecessary health care expenditure.