Anaphylaxis Overview: Addressing Unmet Patient Needs

• Anaphylaxis is life-threatening and requires immediate symptom recognition and treatment.
• Most anaphylactic reactions occur at home or outside a medical office.
• There is a documented need to better equip patients to self-treat anaphylaxis emergencies.
• A patient’s delay in self-treatment increases their risk for death.
• Patient education and the immediate availability of epinephrine can decrease the risks for death.

Anaphylaxis is widely recognized as a life-threatening condition, yet there is a gap between what patients know and need to know in an emergency situation. Anaphylaxis falls into a category of severe and dangerous conditions that places the supreme responsibility of symptom recognition and immediate life-saving treatment directly on the patient. Recent research illuminates that patients are unable to readily recognize the symptoms of anaphylaxis and often do not have an epinephrine autoinjector available for self-treatment. Because most anaphylactic reactions occur outside of the medical office, every possible opportunity to teach patients how to self-treat should be optimized.