Name
#03 Unmasking the Allergy: Outpatient and Operational Penicillin Delabeling by Internist to Optimize Military Readiness
Content Presented On Behalf Of:
DHA
Session Type
Poster
Date
Tuesday, March 3, 2026
Start Time
5:00 PM
End Time
7:00 PM
Location
Prince Georges Expo Hall E
Focus Areas/Topics
Clinical Care, Wellbeing, Policy/Management/Administrative, Trending/Hot Topics or Other not listed
Learning Outcomes
1) Describe the clinical and operational consequences of inaccurate penicillin allergy labels, including their impact on patient outcomes, antimicrobial stewardship, and military readiness.
2) Explain the rationale, safety, and benefits of primary care-led penicillin allergy delabeling using single-step direct oral provocation testing (DOPT) for low-risk patients.
3) Apply the PARSS-based protocol used at NMCP to assess and manage reported penicillin allergies in both clinical and operational settings, enhancing confidence in independent implementation.
Session Currently Live
Description
Penicillin (PCN) is the most implicated agent in documented drug allergies in the United States, affecting approximately 10% of the population, or approximately 30 million individuals. Up to 90% of those reported allergies are either not immunoglobulin-E (IgE) mediated allergies or patients have outgrown the allergy. Patients are disproportionately impacted by these inaccurate labels, which are associated with worse health outcomes, including potential treatment failure, increased risk of multi-drug-resistant organisms, an overall increase in morbidity and mortality, all while increasing the cost of healthcare by requiring the unnecessary use of broad-spectrum antibiotics. Penicillin and its derivatives remain the first-line treatment for several serious infections, including meningitis and syphilis. The medications in the penicillin family are often inexpensive to mass-produce. They can be stored long-term without refrigeration, as they are widely available as oral capsules, and injectable forms may be stored as dry powders available for later reconstitution. These properties make the ability to use PCN advantageous and desirable in operation or resource-limited environments. As practitioners of military medicine, being able to remove inaccurate PCN allergy labels improves access to the limited armamentarium for more warfighters while deployed, overall increasing the force's lethality by minimizing unnecessary medevacs and enhancing force readiness. Historically, PCN allergies have required evaluation by allergists to perform skin prick or intradermal testing, which is time- and resource-intensive. To investigate all PCN allergies, it would take allergists 16 years. The Naval Medical Center Portsmouth Internal Medicine Residency Program, in collaboration with the Allergy and Immunology department, has developed a protocol using a simplified risk stratification tool known as the Penicillin Allergy Risk Stratification Score (PARSS). This scoring system enables primary care providers to identify patients who are low risk for IgE-mediated PCN allergies and allows them to safely perform single-step direct oral provocation testing (DOPT), to remove these labels without the need for subspecialist intervention. Using this protocol, we have successfully delabeled over 321 patients in both the inpatient and outpatient settings. The reach of this project is not confined to the hospital; we have expanded the initiative to the operational setting and have performed DOPT aboard several Wasp-class amphibious ships and, more recently, an aircraft carrier. To date, we have screened 36 patients and completed DOPT for 32 warfighters. We have had one non-anaphylactic reaction (immediate rash) and zero severe or anaphylactic reactions, with a reaction rate of 1%, which is less than the reported 3.7% reaction rate for single-step DOPT. This initiative has improved patient care through increased access to antibiotics, enhanced antimicrobial stewardship, and reduced healthcare costs. Notably, we have improved medical readiness and demonstrated that primary care providers can perform single-step DOPT safely, which can be extrapolated to the operational setting, allowing other physicians to feel confident in incorporating PATC into their clinical practice.