The Relation of Food-Specific IgE to Recurrent Wheezing Attack

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: There were some reports that IgE-mediated food hypersensitivity is associated with subsequent development of atopic disease in wheezy infants. So we carried out this study to show whether the food specific IgE antibodies are useful to predict recurrent wheezing attack in wheezy infants. METHODS: A total of 190 children younger than 4-year-old were enrolled in this study. They were divided into 3 groups according to the number of experienced wheezing attacks as 1st, 2nd and more than 3rd attack group. There were 30 age-matched controls who had not wheezing nor family members of allergy. We measured peripheral blood eosinophil count, total serum IgE level, RAST f1(egg white), f2(milk), D1(Dp) and D2(Df) from the all participants. RESULTS: The proportion of patients having more than 250/mm3 cosinophils in each group increased as increasing wheezing attacks(P0.05). There was no significant difference in RAST f1 levels among the four groups. In contrast, the proportion of positive RAST f1 increased significantly as the number of wheezing attacks increased(P0.05). CONCLUSION: Egg white specific IgE antibody appear to be a risk factor for recurrent wheezing in infants and young child.