Well after a little bit of a hiatus (exam-based once again) we’re hopefully back for some regular blogging. When having a look at things to write about it looks like the topic of allergy will be a bit of a theme over the coming few months, for 2 big reasons. Firstly, the 6th National Audit Project (NAP6) from the Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCOA) is due to report on the 14th May. This time NAP is looking at perioperative anaphylaxis and will no doubt provide a wealth of new information on this (fortunately) rare complication. Whilst we will look at that report in more detail when it comes out, the current focus is on the upcoming DALES project. DALES stands for Drug Allergy Labelling in the Elective Surgical population, and is the 3rd annual project from the Research and Audit Federation of Trainees (RAFT). Us lot at NWRAG will be helping to deliver the project in the North West and we are currently continuing to recruit interested trainees (get in touch here if you are interested). This study is looking at better understanding the problems of drug ‘allergy’ labelling in patients, with the inverted commas and slight raise of the eyebrows being of particular interest here. This is because the application of an allergy label is frequently applied to non-allergy reactions (for instance well recognised side effects) and can interfere with clinical practice and good patient care. The problems that this is causing, and how anaesthetists interact with such labels, still has some unknown quantities, hence the role of this study. As such, I wanted to use this blog post and follow up ones to explore the background of this topic in a bit more detail.
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