Background: Patients with atopic dermatitis sometimes have positive responses to patch testing (PT) with dust mite antigens, which is believed to correlate with the elevated levels of specific IgE for those antigens.
Objective: The purpose of this study is to identify the correlation between the PT and serum IgE concerning the mite antigens.
Methods: We studied 130 patients with atopic dermatitis by the PT reaction and the serum level of specific IgE for Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus antigens.
Results: Fifty-one of the 130 patients assessed as PT-positive had either high (32 of 130 patients; 24.6%) or low or no (19 of 130 patients; 14.6%) levels of mite-specific IgE; there was a significant difference between the groups with elevated and low IgE. Similarly, a total of 79 PT-negative patients also showed an elevated or low mite-specific IgE (42 of 130 patients [32.3%] or 37 of 130 patients [28.5%], respectively). It was noted that clinical morphologic findings were peculiar to three of the four groups; however, the patients who were PT-negative with a low IgE (37 of 130 patients) showed no particular clinical lesions.
Conclusion: Comparing the results from our 130 patients, there was no correlation between the serum IgE level and the PT reaction for dust mite antigens. Conversely, the results of PT and mite-specific IgE could be used to divide these patients into four distinct groups, each with its own particular clinical morphology, suggesting the heterogeneity of this disease.