ALLERGEN COMPONENT TESTING – A NEW ERA IN DIAGNOSTICS OF PATIENTS WITH POLLEN ALLERGY

Abstract

Introduction: Pollen allergy, also called hay fever or pollinosis, is referred to the most widespread allergic diseases. According to different sources, from 5 to 34% of the population in developed countries are likely to suffer from this condition. Moreover, the majority of patients are young people of working age The aim: To demonstrate a practical decision of the choice of effective treatment tactics based on component testing in patients with pollen allergy. Materials and methods: 126 рatients with allergic rhinitis / conjunctivitis were randomly selected according to their primary visit during the first week in August of the current year. Among them, 53 (42.0%) female and 73 (58.0%) male, aged 22-47 years. General laboratory and instrumental investigations, skin prick test with allergen extracts (Diater, Spain), measurement of total serum and specific IgE by immunoenzymatic assay method using test system "Euroimmun" were performed. Immunofluorescent methodImmunoCap (Thermo Scientific, Uppsala, Swiss) was used to detect specific components of allergens. The material of investigation was blood serum. Results: According to the results of skin prick-test, 50% of patients could receive allergen immunotherapy with two different extracts of allergens "Mixture of Weeds" and "Mixture of Grass". On molecular investigations, it was detected that this combination was not suitable for any patient (20% of individuals had genuine sensitization to allergens of grass pollen, including a marker of cross-reactive molecules, 30% of individuals were sensitized with genuine allergens of Artemisia and/or ambrosia). Conclusions: Based on skin prick-test and molecular diagnostics, the doctor makes a completely different decision on the choice of extracts for allergen immunotherapy conduction. Component determination of a sensitized profile and high sensitivity of this method enables to reveal a genuine protein, which is the primary cause of allergy occurrence and administer etiotropic allergen-specific immunotherapy with the allergen, to which sensitization was detected.