- D1.521 - Rarer occurrence of cancer and autoimmune diseases among older patients with life-threatening allergic reactions to insect venom

Allergies may link to neoplastic and autoimmune diseases. Seniors (>60 years) with Hymenoptera venom allergy (HVA) often experience severe reactions and multimorbidity, serving as an model to study these associations

Data from 277 seniors (>60 years) with severe HVA (Mueller grade III–IV), selected from the clinical databases of two Polish university centers, were analyzed for neoplastic, autoimmune, cardiovascular, and metabolic comorbidities. The control group comprised 412 persons selected from 3,598 age-matched non-HVA individuals from a nationwide epidemiological program. Evaluation included retrospective electronic record reviews and immunological sensitization markers. Analyzed comorbidities are categorized in Table 1

In the HVA group autoimmune, metabolic, and malignant diseases occurred less frequently. In contrast and cardiovascular diseases, allergic diseases, and mastocytosis were more prevalent The prevalence of both disease categories and individual disease entities differed between HVA patients aged 60–70 years and those aged >70 years; however, in both age subgroups of the study group, malignant diseases were less frequent, whereas cardiovascular diseases were more common.

The clinical profile of seniors (>60 years) with HVA differs from those without severe HVA, showing a lower prevalence of selected neoplastic and autoimmune diseases.