Histamine release test and measurement of antigen-specific IgE antibody in the diagnosis of allergic conjunctival diseases.

Although systemic allergic laboratory tests for the quantification of allergen-specific serum IgE antibody have been widely used, in these tests a high titer of serum specific IgE does not necessarily indicate evidence of allergy. We evaluated the diagnostic value of the glass microfiber-based histamine release test (HRT) using small amounts of whole blood, in 36 cases of allergic conjunctival diseases: 17 cases of allergic conjunctivitis and 19 of atopic keratoconjunctivitis. The patients were evaluated by HRT, capsulated hydrolic carrier polymer (CAP)-RAST, and conjunctival provocation test (CPT) against ten allergens. The positive rates for all allergens were higher in CAP-RAST than in HRT. The mean concordance of HRT with CAP-RAST results was 0.789. The mean concordance of HRT with CPT was 0.892 and that of CAP-RAST with CPT was 0.693. A significantly higher concordance was observed in HRT than CAP-RAST for Japanese cedar and mite antigen. The mean sensitivity, specificity, and efficiency of HRT were higher than those of CAP-RAST. These results indicate that CAP-RAST is good for the screening of allergens and that HRT has an advantage in the confirmation of clinical allergens in allergic conjunctival diseases because of its high sensitivity, specificity, efficiency, and higher concordance with CPT.