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Copyright of Asthma Allergy Immunology / Astim Allerji Immunoloji is the property of Turkish National Society of Allergy & Clinical Immunology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Asthma Allergy Immunology / Astim Allerji Immunoloji is the property of Turkish National Society of Allergy & Clinical Immunology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: Flow cytometric quantification of in vitro basophil activation can be quite performant and reliable tool to measure IgE-dependent allergen-specific responses in allergic patients. The aim of this study was to determine sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive values (PPV) and negative predictive values (NPV) of BAT in our patients sensitized to house dust mite (HDM) and grass pollen with allergic rhinitis and/ or asthma. Methods: Forty-seven children (35 M/ 12 F, 11±3 years) sensitized to house dust mite and grass pollen with a clinical history of allergic rhinitis and/or asthma were enrolled. To confirm sensitization, a positive skin prick test (SPT) or elevatated specific IgE to Dermatophagoides farina (DF), Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus (DP) and grass pollen were used. The non-allergic healthy control group (n=18) had no history of allergy with negative skin prick tests to the common allergens tested. The BASOTEST kit (Glycotope Biotechnology GmbH, Heidelberg, Germany) was used to carry out BAT according to the manufacturer's instruction. Basophil activation was determined by flow cytometry upon double staining with anti- IgE/anti-CD63 mAb. The upregulation of the activation marker CD63 was calculated by the percentage of the CD63-positive cells compared with the total identified basophilic cells. Results: Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve analyses yielded a cut-off level for positive response as 15% for BAT with HDM and grass pollen when patients and healthy controls were all evaluated. For HDM, the sensitivity, specificity, PPV, and NPV of the basophil activation were 90%, 73%, 0.70 and 0.91, respectively. The analysis of concordance of being either allergic or healthy in comparison to BAT results for HDM revealed a substantial concordance (κ index= 0.61, p<0.001). For grass pollen, BAT attained a sensitivity, specificity, PPV, and NPV of 96%, 93%, 0.98 and 0.88, respectively. The analysis of concordance of being either allergic or healthy in comparison to BAT results for grass pollen revealed an almost perfect concordance (κ index= 0.87, p<0.001). Conclusion: Our results confirmed BAT as reliable and easy method to detect basophil activation in response to grass pollen and HDM in pediatric inhalant allergic patients. The obtained specificity, sensitivity, PPV and NPV values for these allergens were also found to be comparable with the levels in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]