Abstract
In Japan, non-IgE-mediated gastrointestinal food allergies have increased sharply since around 2000. However, unlike the case of IgE-mediated food allergy, development of diagnostic laboratory tests and our understanding of the immunological mechanisms involved in non-IgE-mediated gastrointestinal food allergies lag. The clinical phenotypes might differ from that of Western countries. Clinicians have sometimes experienced confusion because of differences in the clinical phenotypes from those seen in Western countries. Aiming to solve this problem, we performed clinical research and determined a useful method for dividing patients into 4 clusters with distinctive clinical symptoms. We are confident this method will help in diagnosing and treating these patients.
