Our current approach to allergy is primarily patient-based. This focuses on the patient’s prior history of reaction: how severe was it, when was it, how certain are we that it was truly allergic? This strategy has been proven to be inaccurate. For example, ~90% of patients who report a penicillin allergy are not allergic when skin-tested. An alternative strategy is a population-based approach. For example, there don’t appear to be any reports of anaphylaxis to meropenem in the literature. Studies have reported meropenem administration to hundreds of patients without severe allergic reaction (including some with penicillin allergy). Thus, regardless of the patient’s allergy history, it is unlikely that they will have a severe allergic reaction to meropenem.

Read More