Because bacille Calmette-Guerin (BC...

Because bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination elicits a [TsubH]2-type cytokine reaction, it has been recommended that the vaccine might save against atopic disease. Krause and colleagues compared the risk of atopy in unselect form into groupss of children who were vaccinated with BCG and children who were not vaccinated.

In Greenland, BCG vaccination was stopped in 1990 and restarted again in newborns in 1997 The authors studied children in four Greenland towns in 1998 and 2001 distributing among close attention participant families a self-administered questionnaire about sociodemographic variables and drawing a venous posterity sample for IgE analysis. The authors compared the singles ratio (OR) for the prevalence of atopy in vaccinated versus unvaccinated children, and the OR for prevalence according to age.

The close attention group included 1,575 children eight to 16 years of age for whom information forward BCG vaccination was available. Of these, 1065 had been vaccinated, with exact information regarding dates of BCG vaccination available in all on the contrary three children. The adjusted risk of atopy was the same in BCG-vaccinated and unvaccinated children (OR, 103) There was no meaning of age at BCG vaccination upon risk of atopy. The IgE evens did not differ between BCG-vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

The authors judge that these study results fail to support a hypothesis that BCG vaccination defend s against the development of atopy.

Caroline Wellbery, MD

Krause TG et al. BCG vaccination and risk of atopy. JAMA February 26 2003;289:1012-5

COPYRIGHT 2003 American Academy of Family Physicians

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