Chronic Idiopathic and Chronic Autoimmune Urticaria: Clinical and Immunopathological Features of 68 Subjects

Abstract

Skin tests with autologous serum elicit an immediate wheal-and-flare response in about 30-50% of chronic idiopathic urticaria subjects, suggesting that an autoimmune mechanism might be involved in the pathogenesis of this disease. The aim of the present work, involving 68 subjects with chronic idiopathic urticaria, was to distinguish between the serum-positive and serum-negative cases and highlight the clinical differences between the two groups on the basis of the Breneman scale score. We also tried to correlate the finding of a positive response to the autologous serum skin test with other autoimmune diatheses or fully developed autoimmune disorders. Our results did not demonstrate any significant differences between the two groups with regard to mean age, sex distribution, angioedema and mucosal/cutaneous atopy. However, all subjects with positive autologous serum skin test presented more severe clinical features than serum-negative subjects. We found no differences between the two groups in the incidence of autoimmune disease.

Chronic urticaria and thyroid autoimmunity markers

“…Some studies have reported the presence of CAU autoantibodies that indicated a subset of patients with more severe CU [33,34]. However, other studies did not support this observation [31].…”

Chronic idiopathic urticaria and autoimmunity: frequency and association in patients with positive versus negative autologous serum skin test

“…Other studies have reported the prevalence of positive ASST to vary from 34% to 67%. [6][7][8] There was no significant difference between the two groups for age, gender, and presence of angioedema or history of atopy. These findings correlate well with those previously reported by Kulthanan et al and George et al 9,10 Duration of disease was found to be significantly longer in patients with positive ASST by Sabroe et al and Azim et al 5,11 We also found the duration of disease to be longer in ASST positive group however; this could not reach a statistically significant level.…”

“…This is consistent with findings of Bajaj et al and Azim et al 11,12 However, Caproni et al reported more severe clinical features in patients with positive ASST. 6 The above findings thus suggest that the patients of positive and negative ASST cannot be distinguished clinically.…”

Association between chronic spontaneous urticaria and thyroid autoimmunity: a case control study from a tertiary care centre

“…7,16,17 ASST positive patients also had high urticaria activity in our study, in concordance with other reports but unlike other studies where no correlation was found between the severity of urticaria and ASST positivity. 7,10,[18][19][20] There was no difference in the severity of urticaria among patients with normal or abnormal TSH.…”