correlation between number of mast cells, histamin concentration and ige presence in chronic periapical lesions

background & aim: according to presence of immune system factors in chronic periapical lesions, hypersensitivity reactions may have some role in pathogenesis of these lesions. up to now, among the factors participating in type i hypersensitivity reaction, only one of them has been studied. so the aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the presence of ige & number of mast cell and the presence of ige and histamin in human dental chronic periapical lesions. methods & subjects: in this analytical study, 40 specimens were collected from 39 patients. after extraction of the lesions, they were divided into two sections. half of the sections were used for explant culture and were maintained for 3 days. then sandwich enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (elisa) was used to determine the presence and concentration of ige and histamine. based on the presence of ige, the samples were divided into case (with ige) and control (without ige) groups. the other sections were used for estimating the number of mast cells by histopathological technique. mann – whitney u test and spearman correlation coefficient were used to analyze the data. results: the average percent of mast cells in case and control groups was respectively, 10.257.02 and 6.94.09. there was no difference between the case and control groups regarding the number of mast cells and histamin concentration. also there was not any correlation between ige and mast cells or ige and histamin. conclusion: it is concluded that hypersensitivity reaction type i possibly does not have any role in pathogenesis of chronic periapical lesions. j dent sch 2006 24(3): 8