2025 Volume 74 Issue 2 Pages 89-93
We present a case of a 9-year-old girl with pork-cat syndrome (PCS) who experienced repeated episodes of urticaria and gastrointestinal symptoms after ingesting pork, beef, and milk since she was 7 years old. Her family has had a cat since she was born. Antigen-specific IgE tests showed high values against Fel d 1, Fel d 2, Sus s 1, Bos d 6, beef, pork, milk, dog dander, and cat dander. However, an antigen-specific IgE test performed in infancy was negative for cow's milk. The skin prick test was positive for raw pork, raw beef, and milk, but these reactions were attenuated by heating. Immunoblot analysis showed that the patient's serum IgE bound to a protein in pork that had the same molecular weight (67kDa) as cat dander extracts, and also cross-reactivity between these two proteins was confirmed by an inhibition test, leading to the diagnosis of PCS. Similar cross-reactivity was confirmed for beef, milk, and cat dander extracts. We experienced a case of PCS, in which allergies to cow's milk appeared not only due to meat such as pork and beef, but also to cow's milk sensitized by the rearing of cats.
