Serum allergen-specific IgE in wheezing children diagnosed with
asthma or without asthma.
The presence of allergen-specific sIgE was assessed in 43 subjects.
Thirty-two cases (74.4%) were positive for antigen-specific sIgE; 23
cases (53.5%) had sIgE specific for inhaled allergens and 9 cases
(20.9%) specific for food allergens. Eleven subjects were negative for
all allergen-specific antibodies tested (table 1).
We found the positive rates of inhaled-allergen-specific sIgE and
arbitrary sIgE (including inhaled allergen and food allergen) in asthma
group were 63.3% and 76.7%, respectively, while the positive rates in
non-asthma group were 33.3% and 75.0%, respectively. There was no
significant difference in the presence of inhaled-allergen-specific sIgE
(P>0.05) or arbitrary-allergen-specific sIgE
(P>0.05) between the two groups (Table 2).