Skin prick test in chronic idiopathic urticaria: A retrospective analysis

Abstract

Context: Chronic idiopathic urticaria (CIU) is a common clinical condition with a significant impact on the quality of life of its sufferies. Skin prick test (SPT) is a reliable method to detect the allergens and thereby contributing to diagnose of this Type I hypersensitivity. Aims: The aim of this study is to retrospectively analyze the incidence of positive SPT to various allergens in patients with CIU. Subjects and Methods: The data of patients of CIU who had undergone SPT in the dermatology department of a tertiary hospital during the period from July 1, 2018 to December 31, 2019 were reviewed. Evaluation of their history was done with respect to the possible causes and investigations excluding those with a documented history of anaphylaxis, asthma, atopic dermatitis, and dermographism. The results of SPT performed with a battery of 40 allergens (22 aeroallergens and 18 food allergens) obtained from Allergo SPT (Merck specialty Pvt. Ltd., Allergopharma, Darmstadt, Germany), were retrieved and analyzed. Statistical Analysis Used: The data of the 38 patients with CIU who had undergone SPT was entered in Microsoft Excel (MS Office 2016) and then analyzed with descriptive statistics. Results: Overall SPT positivity of these 38 patients was 73.68% and that to food allergens (10.53%), aeroallergens (26.31%), and both aero and food allergens (36.84%). Conclusions: Our study unlike earlier reports in literature ruled out those with clinical as well as laboratory evidence of a topic, disorders which secondarily cause urticaria, thus emphasizing SPT to be an important add-on diagnostic tool even in those cases of CIU which have no obvious exacerbating factors. A significant number of CIU patients of our study showed sensitivity to house dust mite, molds, pollen, food items, and animal epithelia on SPT.

Keywords

• allergen
• chronic idiopathic urticaria
• sensitization
• skin prick test