Abstract
Skin prick-test is the first choice for the detection of type I hypersensitivity in human atopic dermatitis. Canine atopic dermatitis resembles several symptoms of the disease in the human counterpart. In canine atopic dermatitis, intradermal testing is the test of choice, and there are few reports on the use of skin prick test (SPT) in dogs. The purpose of this study was to evaluate SPT reactions in atopic dogs and a healthy control group to 11 environmental allergens. Eleven glycerinated allergens were applied on the left lateral thorax of nine atopic dogs and nine healthy dogs. The skin was pricked with a feather lancet and evaluated for the positive percutaneous reaction at 5, 10, 15, and 20 min after the application of the allergens. Data were analyzed by the Shapiro-Wilk test to test for normal distribution. Data that did not meet normality were analyzed by a one-sided Wilcoxon ranked sum test with a p-value of 0.05. Six out of 9 atopic dogs tested positive for at least one of the allergens tested. None of the dogs in the control group showed a positive reaction to the allergens included in the test. Blomia tropicalis, Dermatophagoides farine, and Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus exhibited the highest reaction rate among the group of atopic dogs. There was not a statistical difference in the histamine reaction (positive control) between both groups. In this set of dogs, the test exhibited a 100% specificity and a sensitivity of 66%. The use of skin prick-test in the detection of causative allergens of human atopic dermatitis has proved to be a sensitive and specific tool frequently used by human allergists. Due to the number of similarities in canine and human atopic dermatitis, this could be a valuable tool that needs intensive research in veterinary medicine. The published research so far correlates to the results obtained in this investigation. However, future studies evaluating the concordance between in vitro specific IgE antibody assays and SPT must be carried out simultaneously to validate the test.
Highlights
The skin prick test (SPT) protocol is a method used in human medicine for the diagnosis of IgE-mediated allergic diseases [1]
According to the available literature, this is the first work in which SPT is evaluated in canine atopic dermatitis (AD) patients for the diagnosis of the allergens they are sensitized to, where indoors-related allergens were the most common sensitizing agents related to AD in these patients
intradermal test (IDT) has been used as the primary screening tool for the implementation of allergenspecific immunotherapy (ASIT) in dogs and cats suffering from AD, contrary to human medicine, where prick test is the first test for the diagnosis of IgE mediated allergic diseases [15]
Summary
The skin prick test (SPT) protocol is a method used in human medicine for the diagnosis of IgE-mediated allergic diseases [1]. When the patient’s skin is exposed to an allergen he/she has been previously sensitized to, the binding of allergen to its specific IgE anchored to IgE receptor (IgE-R) on the cell surface of mast cells triggers their immediate degranulation and histamine release [2]. This reaction will release innate immunity inflammatory mediators that produce a wheal and flare response that can be observed and quantitated directly [3,4,5]. The advantages that SPT has over these two other tests are the low costs, rapid interpretation of results, safety, and higher specificity [9], and it appears to be significantly less painful
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