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).