Background:

Hypersensitivity reactions during chemotherapy have been increasingly documented in children. Drug desensitization is an unknown procedure for most oncologists, despite allowing patients to be treated with first-line agents, affecting the final prognosis. Currently, there are no guidelines for drug desensitization in pediatric age, and the general principles adopted for adults have been applied to children.

Objective:

To describe the experience of an Immunoallergology department of a central hospital in the desensitization to carboplatin and methotrexate in pediatric age.

Results:

Desensitizations were performed on carboplatin in 17 patients, in a total of 112 procedures, and on methotrexate in 4 children, with a success rate of 88% for carboplatin and 100% for methotrexate.

Conclusion:

As far as the authors are aware, this is the largest European series of desensitizations to chemotherapy in pediatric age, including procedures in infants and in non-immediate reactions.

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