Prevalence of serum allergen-specific immunoglobulin E for canine atopic dermatitis in Korea / 동물의과학연구지

Canine atopic dermatitis (CAD) is an allergic skin disease with characteristic clinical features associated with immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibodies. Identification of the causative allergens is the diagnostic goal, which is essential to treat and manage CAD patients. CAD is commonly associated with environmental allergens surrounding the patients. For this reason, it is important for diagnostic tests to select allergens that are related to the environment of each country and each province. There are two main allergen-specific tests, serological IgE test (SAT) and intradermal skin test (IDT). SAT did not show direct cutaneous reaction but did show serological reaction against allergens. However, SAT is simpler and more convenient than IDT in small animal practice. In this study, we selected domestically prevalent allergens for SAT, including 60 food allergens and 60 inhalant allergens, and tested eight dogs tentatively diagnosed with CAD based on Favrot's criteria. Furthermore, IDT was performed on four dogs from the SAT group for comparison of SAT and IDT, and the results were very similar. In SAT, four types of mites (Bloomia tropicalis, Glycophagus domesticus, Euroglyphus maynei, and mite mixture 1 Korea; house dust mites), four types of molds (Botrytis cinerea, Alternaria alternata, mold fungi mixture 11, mold fungi mixture), and one type of pollen (tree pollen mix 3 Korea) induced a reaction in more than half of dogs tested. In IDT, all four dogs reacted positively to Dermatophagoides farinae, and three reacted positively to Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus and house dust. The mean agreement rate between SAT and IDT in this study was 76.3%. This is the first trial to apply local allergens for SAT in Korean veterinary medicine, and it might play an important role for diagnoses and management of animal allergic diseases.

Laboratory Information System using One Combined Request Slip: Specimen Requisition and Order Input System / 대한의료정보학회지

Usually LIS(Laboratory Information System) depend on OCS(Order Communication System) of HIS(Hospital Information System). So, both systems are constructed simultaneously. But it needs high cost and has potential of failure. So, we designed one combined laboratory request slip and isolated LIS(sever: Power Mac 7200, eight clients: LC 475, connected by Ethernet) operating with own order input system before HIS construction. we analyzed the efficiency during early 9 weeks (from Aug. 17 to Oct. 17 in 1995) and later 4 weeks (March in 1996). Daily input amount of request changed stably in the later period(maximum: 552. mean: 410.0) than the early period(maximum: 604. mean: 341.6). Peak time was between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m.(maximum: 127. slip/hour). In the later period, 64.2% the requests for in-patients were completed until 10 a.m. and the request for out-patients distributed more evenly. Majority of problems occurred, were delayed(25.5% in the early, 61.1% in the later period) or missed specimen(31.9% in the early, 22.9% in the later). Total number (26,309) of used requests was less than half of the calculated number(57,621) of previous laboratory slips.