Human Allergy Catalog - Greer

TABLE 1Puncture Skin Tests with 10,000 BAU/mL Grass Extracts(Bifurcated Needle)Reference Puncture PuncturePollen Sum of Wheal (mm) Sum of Erythema (mm)Mean Range Mean RangeBermuda 15.7 7 - 31 90.3 43 - 123Kentucky Blue/June 15.9 6 - 28 77.3 47 - 107Meadow Fescue 11.9 7 - 22 81.1 57 - 115Orchard 14.1 9 - 19 84.3 57 - 111Perennial Rye 17.5 6 - 36 92.3 73 - 135Redtop 14.1 8 - 19 77.1 42 - 98Sweet Vernal 15.7 8 - 30 81.2 28 - 123Timothy 16.9 8 - 40 88.3 51 - 109Intradermal skin tests with eight U.S. reference extracts (TABLE 2) in highlypuncture reactive subjects (TABLE 1) indicate that a calculated dose of 0.02BAU/mL should yield an average sum of erythema reaction of 50 mm, as testedin subjects sensitive to the specific grass pollen extract. However in the moresensitive subjects, the dose was as low as 0.0003 BAU/mL for one grass to 0.002BAU/mL for several others. Conversely, doses of from 0.1 to 1.9 BAU/mL werecalculated to yield the same reaction in the least-sensitive subjects.TABLE 2Intradermal Skin Test Doses(Calculated BAU/mL Required for 50 mm Sum of Erythema)BioequivalentAllergy Units/mLReferencePollen Mean RangeBermuda 0.02 0.0003 - 0.4Kentucky Blue/June 0.02 0.004 - 0.1Meadow Fescue 0.02 0.002 - 0.9Orchard 0.02 0.002 - 1.9Perennial Rye 0.02 0.002 - 0.7Redtop 0.02 0.004 - 0.8Sweet Vernal 0.02 0.002 - 1.0Timothy 0.02 0.002 - 0.6Specific immunotherapy with pollen extracts as employed for many years ishelpful in reducing symptoms associated with exposure to the offendingallergens. A summary of effectiveness by the Panel on Review of AllergenicExtracts, an advisory committee to the U. S. Food and Drug Administration, hasbeen published. 12 Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain theeffectiveness of immunotherapy: an increase in antigen-specific IgG antibodiesis frequently associated with clinical effectiveness, although correlation is not3