Abstract
1081-1206/12/$36.00 see front matter 2012 A http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anai.2012.09.006 Allergic rhinitis (AR) and asthma are the most frequent IgEmediated diseases and may affect up to 40% of the general population, causing substantial social and economic burdens.1 In fact, school or work performance (including school or work absences), daily activities, and quality of life (QoL) are significantly impaired in both children and adults with respiratory allergy.2 Moreover, the progressively increasing number of sensitizations (such as polysensitization) in the same allergic patient seems to characterize the natural history of allergy and represent a common feature of allergic patients. In addition, the component-resolved diagnostic techniques have documented that atopic infants usually start withmonosensitization (sensitization to only one class of allergens) but soon tend to become sensitized to other allergens over time.3 Polysensitization is an immunologic phenomenon that is clinically and epidemiologically relevant. The presence of polysensitization has beenwell documented in both children and adults in general population surveys or allergic population-based studies.4e6 The increasing number of sensitizations seems to characterize the natural history of the allergic patient and may represent a typical evolution of allergy. In a patient survey study analyzing retrospectively 165 asthmatic patients, who were initially monosensitized, Silvestri and colleagues7 found that 43.6% of the patients became polysensitized at the second survey (after 10 years). The transition from monosensitization to polysensitization observed in the entire population was present also in preschool-aged and school-aged children when analyzed separately. In addition, the authors found that house dust mite sensitization and, at a lower degree, pollen sensitization appear to play a triggering role in the development of polysensitization because a high proportion of children initially monosensitized to house dust mites or pollens then became polysensitized.
Published Version
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