Updated October 29, 2014.

A recent report of an elderly woman experiencing a severe food allergy to peanuts shortly after receiving a blood transfusion from a peanut allergic donor brings new concerns to the possible need to screen blood donors for food allergies. Allergic antibodies, present in the blood, can be transmitted through a blood transfusion, and potentially cause the recipient to experience that same allergy.

This phenomenon was actually described about 85 years ago by the researchers, using a similar technique.

Blood taken from a person with fish allergy would be injected into the skin of another person, and then the skin over the area of the injection would then have a positive skin test for fish allergy. The reaction, termed the P-K reaction, was named after its discoverers, Drs. Prausnitz and Küstner.

It appears that this P-K reaction has now been taken a step further: The transfer of food allergy by means of blood transfusion. This raises new concerns for the possible need to screen blood donors for not only transmittable infections, but also for food, drug and venom allergies.

Want to keep learning? Find out about:

• Basics of food allergies
• Most common food allergies