Letter to the Editor: Two Major Phenotypes of Sulfite Hypersensitivity: Asthma and Urticaria

	Correspondence  Open Access
	Yonsei Med J. 2014 Mar;55(2):542-544. English. Published online 2014 February 10.  http://dx.doi.org/10.3349/ymj.2014.55.2.542  © Copyright: Yonsei University College of Medicine 2014 Ga-Young Ban, Mi-Ae Kim, Hye-Soo Yoo, Young-Min Ye and Hae-Sim Park Department of Allergy & Clinical Immunology, Ajou University School of Medicine, Suwon, Korea.  Corresponding author: Dr. Hae-Sim Park, Department of Allergy & Clinical Immunology, Ajou University School of Medicine, 164 World cup-ro, Yeongtong-gu, Suwon 443-380, Korea. Tel: 82-31-219-5150, Fax: 82-31-219-5154, Email: hspark@ajou.ac.kr  Received September 30, 2013; Revised November 04, 2013; Accepted November 26, 2013. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The sulfites are widely used as anti-browning agents and preservatives in food, cosmetics and medicine. The use and amount of sulfites in products have recently been regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Korean FDA; however, sulfite hypersensitivity reactions, ranging from bronchoconstriction,1 urticaria,2 contact dermatitis3 to life threatening anaphylaxis,4 are still being reported.5 To date, this is the first study to compare two major phenotypes of sulfite hypersensitivity, asthma and urticaria, in this country. Moreover, we carefully analyzed the clinical features of sulfite sensitive asthma, and compared them with those of sulfite tolerant asthma... Formats: Article PubReader PDF Figures + Tables References