Development of a progesterone-specific IgE assay for diagnosing patients with suspected progestogen hypersensitivity

Background: Progesterone hypersensitivity (PH) manifests as a spectrum of allergic symptoms during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. Confirming progesterone-specific immunoglobulin E (IgE; sIgE) by skin testing is unreliable because of irritant responses.

Objective: To develop a progesterone sIgE assay to assist in diagnosing PH.

Methods: A progesterone-bovine serum albumin (BSA) conjugate was characterized and used to analyze sera collected from women in our center with suspected PH in a 1-batch enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to establish high, low and negative cut-points. Sera collected from healthy nonatopic female subjects and from women with classical PH symptoms were included as negative and positive controls, respectively. Values exceeding the average negative control (OD + 3× the standard deviation) were considered positive. These cut-points were subsequently used to establish positive and negative results for serum from women with suspected PH received from other centers. A subset of high positive sera was used for ELISA-inhibition and in a beta-hexosaminidase mediator release assay to evaluate the specificity and functional relevance of progesterone-specific serum IgE, respectively. The numbers of true negative, false negative, true positive, and false positive samples were determined.

Results: The direct progesterone sIgE ELISA results ranged from high positive to low positive and negative compared with healthy nonatopic control sera. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay inhibition and beta-hexosaminidase mediator release confirmed specificity and functional relevance of progesterone-sIgE, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity positive predictive values and negative predictive values were found to be 82%, 100%, 86%, and 100%, respectively, using the mediator release assay results as the gold standard.

Conclusion: This assay has a good specificity and positive predictive value for screening women with suspected PH for progesterone sIgE.