the effect of autologous serum therapy on disease severity in patients with chronic urticaria

limited evidence has been obtained concerning the beneficial effects of autologous serum therapy in treatment of skin disorders particularly chronic urticaria. in the present study, we have assessed the effect of this treatment method in patients with chronic urticaria (cu). this randomized single-blind controlled trial was performed on fifty consecutive patients with chronic urticaria. the patients were randomly assigned to receive autologous serum (as the case group, n=35) or normal saline (as the control group, n=15) and treated with monthly autologous serum therapy or normal saline for 6 months. the considered study endpoint was changes in total severity score (tss) at the 6 months follow-up visit. the tss score was assessed at baseline as well as at the ninth week and the sixth month of interventions. the mean±sd of tss at the ninth week of intervention was 10.94±3.92 in autologous serum therapy group and 11.67±2.72 in the normal saline group ( p =0.458). furthermore, the mean values of tss at the sixth month of treatment in the study groups were 8.29±6.29 and 9.27±4.89 respectively ( p =0.593). a downward trend in tss, from baseline to the end of treatment, was seen in the case and control groups ( p <0.001 for both), however the trend of this decline was insignificant between the two groups ( p =0.592). the change in the trend of tss after 6 months of treatment was independent from the administration of autologous serum when compared with normal saline administration (beta=-0.962, p =0.630). multivariate linear regression model with the presence of baseline factors including gender, age, disease duration and history of atopy was performed to assess difference in tss at six-month follow-up visit compared with the baseline value. only young age was associated with more reduction of tss (beta=0.163, p =0.023). we found no difference in the effects of autologous serum therapy and normal saline on the trend of the changes in disease severity in patients with chronic urticaria.