ArticleThe World Allergy Organization journal2022
PEG allergy - A COVID-19 pandemic-made problem? A German perspective.
Article in The World Allergy Organization journal, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Cutaneous Lymphomas and Lymphoproliferative Disorders Associated With SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination: A Systematic Review.Journal of skin cancer · 2026Review
- Managing allergy-related COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: A multi-methods analysis of practitioner notes and referral outcomes.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2025Article
- Detection of PEG-specific antibodies in SARS-CoV-2 positive and negative sera with implications for autoimmune reactivity.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Cutaneous reactions to vaccination.Journal der Deutschen Dermatologischen Gesellschaft = Journal of the German Society of Dermatology : JDDG · 2025Review
- Polyethylene glycol and immunology: aspects of allergic reactions and their mechanisms, as well as ways to prevent them in clinical practice.Immunologic research · 2024Review
- Absence of Anaphylactic Reactions to Injection of Hemoglobin Vesicles (Artificial Red Cells) to Rodents.ACS omega · 2024Article
- SARS-CoV-2 and allergy - what have we learned after two and a half years?Allergologie select · 2023Review
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Polyethylene glycol (PEG) has been used for decades, but only caused allergic reactions exceptionally. Introduction of PEG-containing COVID-19 vaccines might have fostered public interest beyond medical reasoning. Objectives: To investigate the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on the public interest in PEG allergy in Germany and the published PEG allergy cases worldwide. Methods: A retrospective longitudinal study was conducted to measure public interest in PEG allergy analyzing Google search volume in Germany from February 2018 to January 2022. Medically confirmed "PEG allergy" cases were analyzed by looking at the numbers of PubMed case reports and case series from 1977 until January 2022. Results: Web results in Germany before COVID-19 show search volumes related to "PEG allergy/testing" was negligible, with 10 search queries per month. The pandemic led to a >200-fold increase from 250 queries 2 years before to 55 720 queries 2 years thereafter, reflecting tremendous public interest. Additionally, the maximum monthly search volume from before to during the pandemic increased immensely for "vaccination" (57-fold), "vaccination and adverse effects" (85-fold), "vaccination and allergy" (71-fold). In contrast, the increase of publication numbers for the search term "PEG allergy" was small from 2019 to 2021 (2.5-fold). Only a very low number of 211 cases with "PEG allergy" worldwide since 1977 could be identified. Conclusion: PEG allergy became a topic of major public interest because of COVID-19 vaccination. Scientific publications have increased to a lesser extent, probably promoted by public awareness. Conversely, the overall number of cases published with PEG allergy remain very low. The current high demand for COVID-19 vaccination allergy testing is triggered by public interest instead of medical reasoning.
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Registered trials
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