Authors : A. Sundararajaperumal, B. Dakshinamurthy, N. Murugan, D. Ranganathan, R. Karthick
DOI : 10.18231/2456-012X.2018.0004
Volume : 3
Issue : 1
Year : 0
Page No : 12-15
Background: The presence of atopy increases the probability that a patient with respiratory symptoms has allergic asthma but this is not specific for asthma nor is it present in all asthma phenotypes. Atopic status can be identified by skin prick testing or level of serum IgE. Ig E is a tissue bound molecule found in serum in equilibrium with that bound to mast cells and basophils. The aim of this study was to evaluate the levels of serum total IgE in patients with uncontrolled asthma and test the significance of serum IgE as a biomarker/predictor of severity for uncontrolled asthma.
Materials and Methods: A simple random sampling of 55 patients in the age group of 5 to 63 years with 19 males and 36 females over two groups of 45 cases with uncontrolled asthma and 10 controls of controlled asthma were included in the study. Clinical examination, spirometry and serum IgE levels were measured.
Results: The level of serum IgE was high in 80 % of the total study population with as high as 88.8% in the uncontrolled asthma group and 40 % in the controlled group. The mean serum IgE level in uncontrolled asthma patients were 2222 IU/L, while in the control group it was 1224 IU/L.
Conclusions: The high levels of serum IgE in uncontrolled asthma patients clearly indicates the definite correlation between higher IgE levels and uncontrolled asthma and demonstrates an inverse relationship with serum IgE levels and FEV1 %.
Keywords: Allergy; Asthma; Atopy; Gina; Serum IgE.