5-grass pollen tablets achieve disease control in patients with seasonal allergic rhinitis unresponsive to drugs: a real-life study.

BACKGROUND: An important subpopulation in allergic rhinitis is represented by patients with severe form of disease that is not responsive to drug treatment. It has been reported that grass pollen subcutaneous immunotherapy is effective in drug-resistant patients. In a real-life study, we evaluated the efficacy of 5-grass pollen tablets in patients with grass pollen-induced allergic rhinitis not responsive to drug therapy. METHODS: We carried out this multicenter observational study in adults and adolescents with grass-induced allergic rhinitis not responsive to drug therapy who were treated for a year with 5-grass pollen tablets. Clinical data collected before and after sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) included Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma (ARIA) classification of allergic rhinitis, response to therapy, and patient satisfaction. RESULTS: Forty-seven patients entered the study. By ARIA classification, three patients had moderate to severe intermittent allergic rhinitis, ten had mild persistent allergic rhinitis, and 34 had moderate to severe persistent allergic rhinitis. There were no cases of mild intermittent allergic rhinitis before SLIT. After SLIT, 33 patients had mild intermittent allergic rhinitis, none had moderate to severe intermittent allergic rhinitis, seven had mild persistent allergic rhinitis, and seven had moderate to severe persistent allergic rhinitis. The mean medication score decreased from 4.2±1.3 before to 2.4±2.0 after SLIT (P<0.01), representing a reduction of 42%. The response to treatment before SLIT was judged as poor by 70% of patients and very poor by 30%. Patient satisfaction was significantly increased after SLIT (P<0.01). CONCLUSION: In real life, most patients with grass pollen-induced allergic rhinitis not responsive to drug treatment can achieve control of the condition with one season of treatment using 5-grass pollen tablets.

Rubella antibody screening during pregnancy in an urban area of Northern Italy.

Various countries have implemented anti-rubella vaccination campaigns with the main aim of preventing congenital infection. In 2003, Italy joined the European WHO programme for the elimination of congenital rubella and issued a special healthcare plan, one of the objectives of which was to reduce the proportion of rubella-susceptible pregnant women to less than 5% by 2005. The aim of this study was to determine the percentage of seronegative pregnant women after the implementation of this plan. Anti-rubella IgG and IgM antibodies were sought in 2385 pregnant women who attended our hospital for serological screening between 1 July 2008 and 30 June 2010. They included 750 women of foreign origin (31.4%). Eight percent of the women were anti-rubella seronegative: 6.2% of the Italians and 11.7% of the non-Italians. Among the women of foreign origin, the percentage of seronegativity ranged from 5.6% of those coming from Eastern Europe to 17.7% of those coming from Latin America. The level of seropositivity among women of Italian origin is high, although the objective of ensuring less than 5% of susceptible pregnant women has not yet been quite reached in our area. However, particular attention needs to be given to women coming from geographical areas characterised by different epidemiologies and vaccination strategies because the percentage of seronegativity is in some cases double that of Italian women.

Negative Atopy Patch Test and Negative Skin Prick Test Reduce the Need for Oral Food Challenge in Children with Atopic Dermatitis.

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is commonly associated with food allergy. Oral food challenge is the gold standard in the diagnosis of food allergy, but still has some troubles. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether a single test among skin prick test (SPT), measurement of specific immunoglobulin E (IgE), and atopy patch test (APT) or a combination of them could make food challenges unnecessary in patients with AD. Twenty patients affected by AD, under 6 years of age, were evaluated. Every child was investigated for cow's milk and hen's egg allergy using SPT, measurement of serum IgE (sIgE), APT, diagnostic elimination diet for 4 weeks, and open food challenges for milk and egg. The diagnosis of food allergy was established according to the results of the food challenge. We compared the results of all the tests with those of the open food challenge and calculated for each test the following parameters: sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV). Eight of 40 open food challenges were assessed as positive. None of the diagnostic tools showed a sufficient accuracy to be able to replace the food challenge. However, SPT, APT, and the measurement of sIgE as single parameters showed an NPV of 90%, and the combination of SPT and APT showed an NPV of 92%. Food challenge remains the gold standard for food allergy diagnosis in young children with AD, but the combination of SPT and APT is useful when both tests are negative, because this result provides a guidance in excluding an allergy to the investigated food and could make the food challenge superfluous in this case.