Research on the sensitization effects of indoor allergens and their molecular components

Inga Aukštikalnė.“Research on the sensitization effects of indoor allergens and their molecular components“. Aim of the work: To find out the frequency of sensitization to indoor allergens and their components in a group of patients from Lithuania who are suspected to have allergic diseases. Objectives: To evaluate the prevalence of specific IgE (sIgE) to indoor allergens and their specific components. To investigate the frequency and the distribution of monosensitization, polysensitization, sIgE cross-reactivity reactions to allergen components. The results should present information about strengths of sensitization for indoor allergens including sensitization classes. The frequencies and differences of sensitization to the indoor allergen extracts in different genders and age groups should be evaluated. Methods: During the period between August 2017 and April 2018, a study was performed on 106 patients who were suspected to have allergic diseases. sIgE against cat, dog and house dust mites (HDM) D. pteronyssinus ir D. farinae were measured using OPTIGEN®CLA with a mixture of 36 allergens palette and the ImmunoCAP Phadia® 100 diagnostic systems. The sensitization to allergens was accepted as positive starting from 1st class (for OPTIGEN®CLA system >27 LU, for ImmunoCAP Phadia® 100 diagnostic system ≥0,35kIU/L). Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS-17.0 for Windows and Microsoft Office Excel 2016. Results: Among patients from Lithuania that were suspected to have allergic diseases 34,9 % were sensitized to dog, 43,0 % to cat, 55,6 % to D. farinae and 50,0 % to D. pteronyssinus allergens extracts. The results revealed that there is no relevant differences between analyzed gender and age groups (p>0,05). Patients sensitized to cat allergen extract had 89,1 % sensitization to Fel d 1, 17,4 % to Fel d 2, 39,1 % to Fel d 4. For patients sensitized to dog allergen extract had 62,2 % sensitization to Can f 1, 27,0 % to Can f 2, 10,8 % to Can f 3, 37,8 % to Can f 5. The sensitization to house dust mite D. pteronyssinus components was found 56,6 % to Der p 1, 64,2 % to Der p 2, 3,8 % to Der p 10 and 54,7 % to Der p 23. The highest frequency of patients were monosensitized to Fel d 1 (56,5 %), Can f 1 (13,5 %) and Der p 23 (9,4 %) components. There were identified 11,1 % cross-reactivity frequencies between Fel d 2 and Can f 3, 51,9 % between Fel d 4 and Can f 1, 25,9 % between Fel d 4 and Can f 2. Between identified sensitization classes, most common sensitization classes was 2nd and 3rd. Conclusions: HDM allergens has the most prevalence between researched indoor allergens. Most patients are sensitized to Fel d 1, Can f 1, Can f 5, Der p 1, Der p 2, Der p 23 components. The findings were that there is no relevant difference between gender and age groups (p>0,05). Keywords: allergy, indoor allergens, allergen components, sIgE, diagnostics