Relationships between skin prick test, radioallergosorbent test, and chemiluminescent assays in allergic children

The results of skin prick tests (SPT), radioallergosorbent tests (RAST), and multiple chemiluminescent tests (DHS-CLA) to grass mix, parietaria, D. farinae, and D. pteronyssinus were evaluated in 43 allergic children. All CLA tests had valid positive and negative control threads. Chemiluminescent assays class 4 matched with RAST class 3 and/or 4 and CLA class 3 with RAST class 2. The D. farinae, D. pteronyssinus, and grass results obtained with CLA, RAST, and SPT were investigated by principal components analysis that showed a good association between different methods of measuring allergenicity. The results of the present study confirm that DHS-CLA is an effective "in vitro" method for the detection of IgE-allergen specific antibody