Treatment of chronic spontaneous urticaria with high doses of antihistamines

Abstract

Urticaria is a group of diseases, the main clinical symptoms of which are transient rashes characterized not only by itch but skin edema, erythema, arising in any area of the skin, andfull resolution up to 24 hours. Urticaria is observed at least once in life of the 15-25% of the population, 25% of this patients have the chronic form of the disease. The aim of our work was the optimization of treatment of chronic urticaria by the second-generation antihistamine levocetirizine in standard and high daily dosages (up to fourfold), the study of clinical, allergo-logical and immunological characteristics of the results. The study involved 60 patients between the ages of 18 to 73 years with confirmed clinical diagnosis of chronic urticaria. The study was conducted in the clinic of skin and venereal diseases of I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University. Clinical and anamnestic examination, laboratory tests, autologous serum skin test were performed. The study was conducted within 1 month and included diagnostic consultation period and 5 consultations every 7 days. The obtained data were used to generate optimized approaches to the treatment of patients with chronic urticaria with regard to the form and severity level of the disease. Optimally assigned differentiated dosages of antihistamines, based on individual performance autologous serum skin test and severity of the clinical picture of urticaria, equally lead to a reduction of clinical severity and improve quality of life of patients with chronic urticaria.