Response to oral cyclosporine therapy and high sensitivity-CRP level in chronic idiopathic urticaria.

BACKGROUND: Chronic idiopathic urticaria (CIU) is often resistant to common treatment of uriticaria. OBJECTIVE: To find out clinical and laboratory findings affecting the response of oral cyclosporine therapy in CIU. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: The response of oral cyclosporine therapy in 15 patients with CIU (male:female = 5:10, age 16-60 years old, mean 40.0 years old) was studied. Cyclosporine trough level was measured with an enzyme-multiplied immunoassay, and high sensitivity-CRP was measured with a nephelometric assay. The relation between high sensitivity-CRP level and clinical and laboratory findings in CIU was also studied. RESULTS: All the 15 CIU patients responded to oral cyclosporine therapy. High sensitivity-CRP levels before the start of therapy were elevated in nine of 15 CIU patients. The distributions of treatment duration and basophile leukocytes counts in elevated high sensitivity-CRP patients (8.7 +/- 1.3 months, 0.20 +/- 0.05%) were significantly shorter and elevated than those in patients showing no elevation (22.7 +/- 1.7 months, 0.40 +/- 0.05%) (P < 0.05, P < 0.05), respectively. No other clinical and laboratory findings between patients with elevated and not elevated high sensitivity-CRP showed any significant differences. CONCLUSION: Chronic idiopathic urticaria patients with elevated high sensitivity-CRP showed good response to oral cyclosporine therapy.