Babies and toddlers presenting with profuse vomiting shortly after consuming rice, oats, chicken, cows’ milk or eggs may have a little-known condition called food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome (FPIES).

Clinicians should consider the diagnosis when a child aged under two vomits 1-4 hours after ingesting a suspect food, despite having no IgE-mediated allergic skin or respiratory responses, according to a review in the Medical Journal of Australia.

The condition, first reported in the 1970s, only received an ICD-10 classification code in 2015, with international consensus guidelines written by a committee of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology in 2017.

Its prevalence is unknown, with estimates varying from 15 per 100,000 to 3 per 1000 infants a year, write paediatric allergist Dr Sam Mehr of the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, and Professor Dianne Campbell from the Children’s Hospital at Westmead and the University of Sydney.