BACKGROUND In allergic individuals, onset of symptoms is related to atmospheric pollen grain counts and aeroallergen concentrations. However, this relationship is not always clear. OBJECTIVES To analyze the correlation between grass pollen grain and aeroallergen concentrations in Ciudad Real, Spain, during the year 2004 and establish their association with symptoms in patients with allergic a...

Fungi are ubiquitous and form their own kingdom. Up to 80 genera of fungi have been linked to type I allergic disease, and yet, commercial reagents to test for sensitization are available for relatively few species. In terms of asthma, it is important to distinguish between species unable to grow at body temperature and those that can (thermotolerant) and thereby have the potential to colonize ...

PURPOSE Aeroallergens are important causative factors of allergic diseases. Previous studies on aeroallergen sensitization rates investigated patients groups that had visited pediatric allergy clinics. In contrast, we investigated sensitization rates in a general population group of elementary school to teenage students in Incheon, Jeju, and Ulsan. METHODS After obtaining parental consent, sk...

The association of alcohol intake with total serum IgE concentrations in humans is discussed in the present review. The possible relationship of regular alcohol intake with both the risk of allergic sensitization and serum allergen-specific IgE values is also reviewed. Several studies consistently show that total serum IgE concentrations are increased in alcoholics when compared with healthy co...

OBJECTIVES To determine asthma and allergy phenotypes in unselected urban black teenagers and to associate bronchial hyper-responsiveness (BHR) with asthma, other atopic diseases and allergen sensitisation. METHODS This was a cross-sectional study of 211 urban high-school black children of Xhosa ethnicity. Modified ISAAC questionnaires regarding asthma, eczema and rhinitis were administered. ...

BACKGROUND Avoidance behavior against positive allergens detected by using multiple allergen simultaneous test (MAST)-immunoblot assay in patients with urticaria has been rarely reported. OBJECTIVE We aimed to assess the avoidance behavior of patients with urticaria against positive allergens detected with a MAST. METHODS One hundred and one urticaria patients who showed positivity to at le...

Measuring specific IgE can yield direct, accurate, and objective data. Nevertheless, clinical symptoms of allergy are often inconsistent with these data. Recently, the expression of CD203c, a surface marker of basophils, has been reported as capable of distinguishing allergic patients. This study compared specific IgE in serum and skin tests against antigen to assess CD203c as a biomarker corre...

This paper examines the clinical expression of asthma in a group of patients displaying rhinitis according to age, sex, associated symptoms, smoking, familial history of asthma, atopy, type of sensitization to aeroallergens (pollens and/or indoor allergens), total serum immunoglobulin E (IgE), and blood eosinophils. A total of 117 adults with rhinitis were analysed on the basis of symptoms. Amo...

Prevalence rates of childhood asthma and allergy have been on the increase for several decades. The present study investigated whether this trend continued during the 1990s in adolescents living in Switzerland. Between 1992 and 2000, the change in prevalence of specific immunoglobulin E to aeroallergens, asthma symptoms and hay fever symptoms assessed by parents' and students' answers to the In...