Schuler CF, Volertas S, Khokhar D, et al. - In the present study, the researchers sought to determine the prevalence of hymenoptera venom anaphylaxis (HVA) and mastocytosis in the US using an insurance claims database and assess the influence of mastocytosis on venom immunotherapy (VIT) in HVA patients in a US cohort. In order to identify patients with HVA and/or mastocytosis, the IBM Watson Database, which contained insurance claims from approximately 27 million US patients in 2018, was queried. In addition, a retrospective study of 161 patients who underwent VIT at the University of Michigan (U-M) between 2015 and 2018 was carried out. The authors found a lower US HVA prevalence than previously reported. Mastocytosis was found to be more prevalent in US HVA patients, but at lower rates than previously reported. There was no connection between tryptase levels and reaction severity in VIT patients.