Venom immunotherapy (VIT) is the only effective treatment for prevention of further anaphylactic reactions to bee and wasp stings in allergic individuals. A previous national survey carried out in 2006/2007 revealed significant heterogeneity in UK practice [1]. The British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology (BSACI) guidelines for the diagnosis and management of hymenoptera venom (HV) a...

Myocardial infarction after wasp sting is a rare event and this complication has been described in only a few previous occasions. We report the case of a 77-year-old patient admitted to our hospital because of an anaphylactic shock after he was stung by a wasp on the fifth finger of the left hand. Within about half an hour he sustained an acute myocardial infarction. Possible pathogenetic mecha...

To the Editor: Mastocytosis (MC) denotes a heterogeneous group of clinical disorders caused by abnormal growth and accumulation of mast cells (incidence in the general population presumably 7 new cases per 1,000,000 persons each year). It ranges from primarily cutaneous manifestations of urticaria pigmentosa to systemic mastocytosis (SM), in which virtually every tissue can be involved, to rare...

Mycobacterium abscessus subsp. massiliense, a rapidly growing mycobacteria (RGM) that is becoming increasingly important among human infectious diseases, is virulent and pathogenic and presents intrinsic resistance to several antimicrobial drugs that might hamper their elimination. Therefore, the identification of new drugs to improve the current treatment or lower the risk of inducing resistan...

BACKGROUND Venom immunotherapy (VIT) is the only effective treatment for prevention of serious allergic reactions to bee and wasp stings in sensitized individuals. However, there are still many questions and controversies regarding immunotherapy, like selection of the appropriate allergen, safety and long term efficacy. METHODS Literature review was performed to address the role of basophil a...

When stung by the parasitoid wasp Ampulex compressa, cockroaches Periplaneta americana enter a hypokinetic state that is characterized by little, if any, spontaneous locomotor activity. In the present study we investigate the effect of an octopamine receptor agonist and an antagonist on the locomotor behavior of stung and control cockroaches. We show that in cockroaches stung by a wasp the octo...

BACKGROUND Severe systemic reactions (SRs) to insect venom are rare in childhood and there are few data on this study population. The aim of our study is to analyze the clinical features and to document the risk factors for severe SRs in children with insect venom allergy. METHODS Children with SRs after Hymenoptera sting were analyzed. The diagnosis was based on medical history, skin tests a...

Despite the early recognition (see Chapter 1) of the dangerous nature of the venom of bees, wasps and ants, it was the end of the nineteenth century before venoms started to attract the attention of medical research workers. A prerequisite to studies on the nature of the venoms was the development of methods for their collection. Before collection of venom could be possible, the Hymenoptera mus...

McGain, Harrison, and Winkel (2000) report that Australia has a diversity of creatures spewing venom, many of which are capable of inflicting lethal injuries to individuals. European wasps (Vespula germanica), while not gaining as much public attention as snake and spider bites in America, are capable of injecting highly dangerous stings. In reference to the widespread distribution of wasps and...

BACKGROUND Yeast surface display is a technique, where the proteins of interest are expressed as fusions with yeast surface proteins and thus remain attached to the yeast cell wall after expression. Our purpose was to study whether allergens expressed on the cell surface of baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae preserve their native allergenic properties and whether the yeast native surface gl...