Standardization of basophil degranulation for pharmacological studies.

There is a need of a standard basophil degranulation test for diagnosis and for immunopharmacological studies. In order to obtain a sufficient concentration of basophils blood was sedimented at 1 g which gave a yield of 1500-3000 basophils/microliter instead of 50/microliter in whole blood. As the course of degranulation is exponential, it can be linearised using a logarithmic approximation Y = A0 + A1 log D where D is the allergen concentration. The application of this mathematical method permitted the collection of statistical information about the test itself. The coefficient of variation was less than 10%. The test can be used to compare the allergenic potency of different extracts of the same allergen.