View clinical trials related to Vespid Venom Allergy.
Filter by:Insect venom allergy is the major cause for severe allergic reactions in Europe. Wasps and honeybees are responsible for the majority of these allergic reactions. Symptoms range from generalized skin symptoms (wheals, swellings) to respiratory or cardiovascular problems such as asthma, dizziness, loss of consciousness, or cardiac arrest. The regular administration of insect venom ('venom immunotherapy') over up to 5 years is a well-established therapy, providing long-term protection from further systemic sting reactions in the majority of patients. However, there is no laboratory test which is able to identify patients who will still react to an insect sting. The only reliable method available is stinging patients with living insects ('sting challenges'). The key issue is that only few centers in Europe perform sting challenges and many patients have no access to these tests. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to find a method which is able to identify patients who are still at risk for future allergic sting reactions. The inhibition of the basophil activation test (BAT) could be a potential method to monitor the effectiveness of immunotherapy. Basophils are cells which are activated in acute allergic reactions. The basophil activation of blood donors with vespid venom allergy can be measured after adding sera from allergic patients undergoing immunotherapy. In a preliminary study we found that the activation of basophils could be inhibited in all patients treated with vespid venom, however, results must be confirmed in a larger study. In this study, a total of 219 patients with vespid venom allergy will be included. Those patients who are receiving or who have already finished venom immunotherapy will be sting challenged and blood samples will be taken to perform BAT inhibition experiments. At the same time, donors with confirmed vespid venom allergy, who have not undergone immunotherapy, will be recruited for a blood donation, which is necessary for the BAT inhibition tests. If results of the preliminary study could be confirmed, the BAT inhibition will facilitate monitoring the effectiveness of venom immunotherapy and patients would benefit from an early detection of lacking tolerance and consequently from the increased venom dose preventing future life threatening systemic sting reactions.
About 20% of the general population are affected by an allergy - with an upward trend. Quite often, allergic people do not consider their disease as serious and suffer from subsequent complications, like allergic asthma, later in their life. The sooner the allergen source is identified, the sooner the therapeutic intervention (e.g. dietary recommendations, allergen avoidance, anti-inflammatory treatment or allergen immunotherapy) can be started. Cross-reactivity may also play an important role. Therefore, a comprehensive allergy test is essential for an optimal treatment of patients. Modern multiplex testing is an individualized diagnostic approach, which may help to identify eligible patients for allergen immunotherapy and may identify risk groups by analyzing the sIgE profile. Until now, published data on the clinical usability of multiplex allergy diagnostic test systems are often limited. Even though, available studies show a good correlation between conventionally used multiplex or singleplex assays (ISAC or ImmunoCAP) and the new multiplex assay (ALEX and ALEX²), the results are often based on small sample sizes investigating many different allergens. Therefore, this clinical performance study is conducted to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of the ALEX² IgE multiplex test using the Multi Array Explorer (MAX 45k, MacroArray Diagnostics) automated laboratory system in comparison to a conventional IgE singleplex test system as well as clinical symptoms and skin prick test results in a total of 826 patients. Patients with the most common inhalant allergies (e.g. grass pollen, house dust mite or cat allergy) will be included as well as patients suffering from Hymenoptera venom allergy, which is the major cause of anaphylaxis.