Allergic to prawns? A Singapore trial is studying whether you can build up a tolerance

Prawn allergy can mean more than simply skipping the crustacean on your plate, especially when shellfish is common in Singapore cooking. Could gradually exposing the body to prawn offer another way to manage the allergy?

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For those with a prawn allergy, avoiding a severe, life-threatening, anaphylactic reaction might sound simple enough: don't eat prawns.

But in Singapore, that can be easier said than done. Shellfish is widely used in local cooking – both as the key ingredient in dishes such as prawn noodle soup, as well as woven into other local favourites such as laksa and rojak. This makes accidental exposure and cross-contamination a concern for people with the allergy.

A new clinical trial in Singapore is offering a seemingly counterintuitive approach: give patients prawn – and even gradually increase the exposure.

National University Hospital (NUH) has launched Singapore's first clinical trial of oral immunotherapy for prawn allergy to study whether carefully controlled exposure can help patients develop greater tolerance to the food over time.

WHY IS PRAWN ALLERGY A PARTICULAR CONCERN IN SINGAPORE?

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