title: [Clinical usefulness of the histamine release test in assessing adult asthmatic patients who keep hamster].
abstract: Recently, the prevalence of keeping pets, such as hamsters and guinea pigs, at home has been increasing in Japan. The number of adult asthmatic patients who keep hamster (HKA) has increased, and accounted for 20% of all pet owners in 1997. Histamine release tests (HRT) were performed on 28 patients of HKA, who consulted with the outpatient clinic of our department, and the results were compared with CAP-RAST. HRT were performed with peripheral blood obtained from each subject, and histamine content was measured by fluorescent assay. 7 in 12 RAST positive patients and 4 in 16 RAST negative patients in HKA had histamine release titer reaction over 15 ng/ml. HRT and CAP-RAST scores were correlated in HKA, and HRT could be evaluated before and after stopping keeping hamsters in five subjects to find decreased HRT scores in all. The results obtained indicate that those tests were useful for the clinical diagnosing and monitoring of HKA.
authors.affiliation: Division of Respiratory and Infectious Disease, Department of Internal Medicine, St. Marianna University School of Medicine.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Seki
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D000829:Animals, Domestic / Q000276:immunology*; D001249:Asthma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000276:immunology; D006224:Cricetinae / Q000276:immunology*; D005260:Female; D006636:Histamine Release / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011852:Radioallergosorbent Test