Jul 9, 2026 · 24 min · 15 segments
The next episode from our colleagues at TopMedTalk features Andy Cumpstey interviewing Louise Savic, consultant anaesthetist and NIHR doctoral researcher at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, UK, who…
Louise SavidgeGuest
Andy CumpsteyHostTom AbbottGuest
To some people listening at home, that distinction might not be immediately obvious.
So what we know is that some people are truly allergic to a drug, and every time they meet it, they'll have an allergic-type reaction.
There's a far bigger proportion of patients who acquire a label of drug allergy, when actually what they experienced was side effects or y- just unrelated signs or symptoms that, that were nothing to do with the drug that they took.
To the best of our knowledge, that's probably around ninety to ninety-five percent of drug allergy labels.
That data comes from penicillin allergy, which is the commonest allergy, not just in the UK or in surgical patients, but, but globally.
So we know that when we test patients for penicillin allergy, about ninety to ninety-five percent of patients will tolerate it when it's given to them.
But of course, there is that small but important minority of patients who do have a true allergy, and then it's really important that we do avoid the drug for those patients.
And it's a tricky area that you've become a bit of a national specialist in, but it's your PhD topic.
It's a lot of your trial and research topics we're gonna talk about in a second.
But before we get into that, could you maybe tell us a bit more about the background to this work and why you became so interested in it, and why it's such an important area for us to be looking at?
So I started to become interested in drug allergy maybe ten or fifteen years ago, and I was interested in perioperative allergic reactions.
To some people listening at home, that distinction might not be immediately obvious.
So what we know is that some people are truly allergic to a drug, and every time they meet it, they'll have an allergic-type reaction.
There's a far bigger proportion of patients who acquire a label of drug allergy, when actually what they experienced was side effects or y- just unrelated signs or symptoms that, that were nothing to do with the drug that they took.
To the best of our knowledge, that's probably around ninety to ninety-five percent of drug allergy labels.
That data comes from penicillin allergy, which is the commonest allergy, not just in the UK or in surgical patients, but, but globally.
So we know that when we test patients for penicillin allergy, about ninety to ninety-five percent of patients will tolerate it when it's given to them.
But of course, there is that small but important minority of patients who do have a true allergy, and then it's really important that we do avoid the drug for those patients.
And it's a tricky area that you've become a bit of a national specialist in, but it's your PhD topic.
It's a lot of your trial and research topics we're gonna talk about in a second.
But before we get into that, could you maybe tell us a bit more about the background to this work and why you became so interested in it, and why it's such an important area for us to be looking at?
So I started to become interested in drug allergy maybe ten or fifteen years ago, and I was interested in perioperative allergic reactions.
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