Nikolaos Kitsos
Pediatrician, pediatric allergist, and chief researcher into reliable methods for diagnosing antibiotic allergies in children
Nikolaos Kitsοs is a pediatrician specializing in pediatric allergology. He completed his specialization in pediatrics and pediatric allergology in Sweden and the United Kingdom. Since his return to Greece in 2017, he has been active in both Volos and Larissa as an academic pediatric allergology scholar at the Department of Pediatrics of the University of Thessaly at the General University Hospital of Larissa, headed by Professor George A. Syrogiannopoulos.
In 2017, in collaboration with a research team, he launched an ambitious research project at the Ippokrateio General Hospital of Thessaloniki’s 3rd Pediatric Clinic, with the aim of helping children with drug allergies – specifically, allergic reactions to antibiotics. Drug allergies pose a serious problem for both children and their families, as well as for doctors working in primary healthcare. Supervised by Antigoni Mavroudi (Associate Professor of Pediatric Allergology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Dimitris Cassimos (Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Democritus University of Thrace), and Ioannis Xinias (Associate Professor of Pediatric Gastroenterology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), and heading the team himself, the project set out to investigate the existence of reliable methods for diagnosing antibiotic allergies in children.
Nikolaos Kitsos is responsible for conducting allergy skin tests involving the drugs in question, undertaking antibiotic challenge testing, and treating any allergic reactions that arise. The research also aims to train specialist pediatricians, so that they are able to recognize the symptoms of drug allergies and proceed with their treatment. Timely and accurate diagnoses are important for the following reasons:
By means of this research, the entire team hopes to make a contribution to pediatric medical knowledge, to help pediatricians in their everyday clinical practice, and to enrich the literature on an issue that has attracted minimal research on an international level.
