Comparison of Allergic Skin Prick Test and FAST System in Patients with Allergic Rhinitis

ABSTRACT

The diagnosis of allergic rhinitis in clinical practice is frequently based on a skin prick test. The measurement of serum levels of specific IgE can be used as an alternative test to the skin prick test. Therefore, we tried to demonstrate the relationship between a skin prick test and Fluoro-Allergo-Sorbent Test (FAST) system in allergic rhinitis patients. In this study, we evaluated the results of skin prick tests and FAST allergens in 90 patients who were confirmed to have allergic rhinitis. The agreement between the skin prick test and FAST was statistically significant for D. pteronyssinus and D. farinae, while less significant for the other allergens. FAST is time and cost-efficient in specific IgE detect, while it shows high-agreement for only a few allergens. As a result, it is considered that there will be some limit in applying the FAST.