Successful treatment of refractory idiopathic angio-oedema with omalizumab: review of the literature and function of IgE in angio-oedema.

The management of angio-oedema is quite complicated because of the frequent poor response to usual treatments, including H1 antihistamines, systemic corticosteroids, immunosuppressant drugs, antileucotriene drugs or tranexamic acid. Omalizumab, an anti-immunoglobulin (Ig)-E antibody, has shown good resuts in chronic spontaneous urticaria, and might also be a good option for angio-oedema. To our knowledge, there have been eight relevant case reports published in the English literature. We report two further cases (a 55-year-old man and a 36-year-old woman) with severe chronic recurrent angio-oedema affecting the face, pharynx, hands, feet and hips. Both patients were refractory to H1 antihistamines, systemic corticosteroids and tranexamic acid. We decided to start with subcutaneous omalizumab 375 mg every other week and tapering doses up to 375 mg every 4 weeks. Both patients showed a very good response to the therapy, with clinical improvement in the first week. This response remained stable more than 3 years later.