Evaluation of total IgE in diverse allergosis. Comparative study with other techniques. Part I.
Three hundred patients whose ages ranged between 10 and 50 years were studied. They were classified, according to the number of sensitizing allergens, their sensitization frequency, the clinical syndrome diagnosed, and the therapy followed by each one of them. Intracutaneous tests with twenty-nine groups of allergens and the determination of total IgE, were carried out on each of them. A statistical evaluation was performed on the results obtained, for the purpose of proving mathematically the certainty of these values. The results obtained lead to the following conclusions: 1) The mean values of IGE found coincide with those discovered by other authors, except in the cases of parasytosis and atopic dermatitis. 2) The expression "mean value of IgE" is incorrect for comparative effects with respect to normal levels, since a great diffusion of individual values with respect to this mean value, were observed in all the circumstances studied. 3) A different reaginic response is noticed in the patients studied: from 50 to 70% presented extremely elevated values of serum IgE. Points 1) and 3) are being submitted to an exhaustive re-examination.