Diagnosis | NConnect

The symptoms and indictors of cow’s milk protein allergy (CMPA) can be diverse and non-specific. This creates a challenge for parents and healthcare professionals, and often leads to misdiagnosis or delays in diagnosis. To help prevent this and speed up the diagnostic process, a range of guidelines and tools have been developed.

Each tool has been designed with the goal of helping healthcare professionals reach a diagnosis sooner, whilst leading to better outcomes and experiences for children with CMPA and their parents.

The Steps to Diagnosis

The overall goal is to shorten the diagnostic process and reduce the patient burden. Three key steps were suggested by The European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI)¹

Take an allergy-focused history
Perform supportive IgE tests (when appropriate)
Prepare the management plan

The IgE test results are interpreted along with the allergy-focused history. The diagnosis should be confirmed through a diagnostic elimination diet followed by food reintroduction/challenge.

01 The Allergy Focused History

The European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI) Guidelines on food allergy² suggest that the allergy-focussed

02 Supportive IgE Tests

Supportive procedures, such as IgE testing, exist to help diagnose CMPA. However, none of the IgE tests available when used alone

03 Diagnostic Elimination Diet and Food Reintroduction/Challenge

The elimination diet is as intuitive as it sounds – cow’s milk protein (CMP) (all sources)

04 The Management Plan

Successfully managing cow’s milk protein allergy (CMPA) is always easier when it starts with an early, and accurate, diagnosis

Learn from the experts

Leading experts in pediatric food allergy discuss diagnosis of CMPA in our online video series.

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