Practical guide for evaluation and management of beta-lactam allergy: position statement from the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

CSACI · 2020 · Canada

Source and licence

Authors
Samira Jeimy, Moshe Ben-Shoshan, Elissa M Abrams et al.
Title
Practical guide for evaluation and management of beta-lactam allergy: position statement from the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology
Journal
Allergy, Asthma, and Clinical Immunology : Official Journal of the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 2020
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Changes
Verbatim excerpts; formatting adapted

Full text retrieved 2026-10-27 from Europe PMC · PMC7653726

Licence statement of the original publication

Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

This page reproduces excerpts of the original publication; the original is authoritative. It has not been reviewed by a physician, does not state a recommendation of Medelix and does not replace medical advice. The guideline may have been updated since.

Open the original publication →Full text on Europe PMC

Recommendations

We found no explicitly labelled recommendations in this publication; its recommendations are in the running text of the original.

Abstract

The vast majority of individuals labelled as allergic are not deemed truly allergic upon appropriate assessment by an allergist. A label of beta-lactam allergy carries important risks for individual and public health. This article provides an overview of beta-lactam allergy, implications of erroneous beta-lactam allergy labels and the impact that can be provided by structured allergy assessment. We provide recommendations on how to stratify risk of beta-lactam allergy, beta lactam challenge protocols as well as management of patients at high risk of beta-lactam allergy.

Contents of the original publication

The section headings of the original.

  • Background
  • Mechanisms and spectrum of beta-lactam allergy
  • Beta-lactam structure and cross-reactivities
  • Clinical implications of erroneous labels of beta-lactam allergy
  • Diagnostic tests for beta-lactam allergy
  • Direct challenge without skin testing
  • Follow up of patients after a negative challenge
  • Alternative antibiotic selection in the setting of confirmed beta-lactam allergy
  • Desensitization in the setting of IgE mediated beta-lactam allergy
  • Conclusions

A question about this guideline?

Medelix answers clinical questions from guidelines and studies – every statement with its source.

Are you the rights holder and object to this reproduction? Write to contact@medelix.ai and we will take the page down promptly. Imprint