Are cutaneous hypersensitivity tests to inhalant allergens a severity marker for vernal keratoconjunctivitis?

• Autor(a) principal: Oliveira,Lauro Augusto de
• Data de Publicação: 2007
• Outros Autores: Mallozi,Marcia Carvalho, Sole,Dirceu, Freitas,Denise de, Sousa,Luciene Barbosa de, Mannis,Mark J.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Arquivos brasileiros de oftalmologia (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0004-27492007000600020
• topic: Hypersensitivity; Conjunctivitis, allergic; Conjunctiva/immunology; Skin tests

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to analyze the cutaneous sensitivity to a variety of allergens in patients with vernal keratoconjunctivitis (VKC) and to demonstrate the relation between skin response and clinical aspects of the disease. METHODS: Twenty patients with vernal keratoconjunctivitis were randomly chosen from the External Disease and Cornea Sector. They were clinically evaluated, and a score ranging from 0 to 20 was applied based on signs and symptoms on ophthalmic examination. All subjects underwent a skin prick test against standardized allergens, such as house dust mites D. pteronyssinus, D. farinae, and Blomia tropicalis, as well as allergens from cat, dog, fungi and feather. RESULTS: Seventy-five per cent of patients were positive for at least one of the allergens tested. House dust mites were responsible for the majority of the cases (75%). There was a poor correlation between the clinical score and sensitivity to allergens (r= - 0.119 for fungi; r= - 0.174 for dog; r= - 0.243 for house dust mites; r= - 0.090 for feather). A significant correlation was found only for cat allergen extract (r = - 0.510; p=0.024). CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrated poor correlation between cutaneous hypersensitivity tests and clinical findings in patients with vernal keratoconjuntivitis. We concluded that skin response to inhalant allergens is not a useful test to identify clinical severity and chronicity of inflammatory process in this disease.