Allergen Specific IgE Measurement with Polycheck Allergy: Comparison of Three Multiple Allergen Simultaneous Tests

Abstract

Background : The in vivo skin prick test (SPT) or in vitro detection of allergen specific IgE in serum is commonly used for the diagnosis of allergic disease. In this study, we evaluated the usefulness of a new multiple allergen simultaneous test (MAST) immunoblot assay, Polycheck Allergy (Biocheck GmbH, Germany).Methods : A total of 100 patients with clinical findings of allergic diseases were tested by SPT and three different MAST assays: Polycheck Allergy (Biocheck GmbH, Germany), MAST CLA allergy system (Hitachi Chemical Diagnostics, USA) and Allergy Screen (R-biopharm, Germany). The results of MAST assays were compared with those of SPT.Results : Concordance rates of MAST assays with SPT were 79-100% for Polycheck Allergy, 88.9-100% for MAST CLA and 72.7-98.3% for Allergy Screen. In ROC curve analysis, significant differences were observed in four of 25 allergens analysed: Alternaria, Birch, Hazelnut and D. farinae. For Alternaria and Birch, Polycheck Allergy (P<0.001) and Allergy Screen (P=0.0075) showed significantly larger AUC (area under the curve) than MAST CLA. For Hazelnut, Polycheck Allergy (P=0.0021), and for D. farinae, MAST CLA (P=0.015) showed significantly larger AUCs than the other two tests. The ROC analysis for overall 16 food allergens showed better results in Polycheck Allergy (P<0.001), and that for overall 21 inhalants did not show significant differences among three MAST assays (P>0.05).Conclusions : Since Polycheck Allergy showed similar or superior result to the others, it can be used for the detection of allergen specific IgE antibodies. (Korean J Lab Med 2009;29:465-72)

Comparison of Multiple Allergen Simultaneous Test and ImmunoCAP for the Diagnosis of Allergic Rhinitis

“…Polycheck Allergy has been reported to have similar speci�city (93.5%) with an RIDA Allergy Screen (90.0%) or MAST CLA (96.0%) [6]. In our study, ImmunoCAP assay was performed only on discrepant sera, which could make some different results from previous study [6].…”

“…MAST CLA, previous version of MAST Optigen, has been reported to have slightly lower sensitivity (44.5%) than RIDA Allergy Screen (55.8%) or Polycheck Allergy (55.6%) [6]. e performance of MAST Optigen might be improved compared to MAST CLA as previous report [17].…”

“…Although, most of evaluations of performance of MAST assays were performed compared to allergen skin test [6,[13][14][15][16], comparisons with ImmunoCAP assay have been performed [5,8,17] considering the limitation of allergen skin test as a reference method due to the difference of principle of in vivo test from in vitro test [1]. ImmunoCAP assay has been known to have established performance [2].…”

“…However, allergen-speci�c IgE assays are o�en modi�ed as manufacturers improve allergens or change reagents to optimize test performance, affecting the diagnostic performance of those assays. MAST Optigen (Hitachi Chemical Diagnostics, Mountain View, CA, USA), upgraded version of MAST CLA (Hitachi Chemical Diagnostics, Mountain View, CA, USA), and Polycheck Allergy (Biocheck GmbH, Munster, Germany) were recently introduced with good performances [6,9,10]. However, to the best of our knowledge, comparison of performances of those assays and analysis of concordance with ImmunoCAP system has not been performed.…”

“…However, individual ImmunoCAP test can only detect IgE against a single allergen, making it quite expensive to use in a clinical setting [4]. erefore, several multiple allergen simultaneous tests (MAST) were developed, which can detect more than 30 allergen-speci�c IgE [5][6][7][8]. However, allergen-speci�c IgE assays are o�en modi�ed as manufacturers improve allergens or change reagents to optimize test performance, affecting the diagnostic performance of those assays.…”