Significance of total and specific IgE in asthma of Iraqi adult patients

A case-control retrospective study was conducted during January – June 2019 on 104 patients with asthma (50 females and 54 males) and 111 non-asthmatic healthy subjects matched patients for gender (54 females and 57 males) to assess role of total and specific IgE serum levels in patho-physiology of disease using ELISA and multiplex immunoblot kits. The mean age ± standard deviation of asthma patients was 37.9 ± 12.1 years, while it was lower among control (35.9 ± 10.5 years), but the difference was not significant. Males and females were similarly distributed among asthma cases (48.1 and 51.9%, respectively) and control (48.6 and 51.4%, respectively). Most of asthma cases were observed to have mild disease (49%), followed by moderate and severe asthma (93.4 and 11.5%, respectively). It was also observed that 51.9% of patients had a family history of asthma. With respect to allergen type, 21.2% of asthma cases were seropositive for mixed types of allergens. Median level of total IgE was significantly (p < 0.001(elevated in sera of asthma cases (204.1 ng/ml) compared to control subjects (163.3 ng/ml). The level positively paralleled the severity of disease. The highest level was observed in severe cases (244.9ng/ml, while the lowest level was recorded in mild cases (189.7 ng/ml). The level of specific IgE showed some variations among asthma cases distributed according to the type of allergen, the highest median was recorded in seronegative cases (215.2 ng/ml), while a lowest level was observed in cases seropositive for animal dander (189.3 ng/ml). Logistic regression analysis revealed that total asthma patients, as well as male and female cases were at an increased risk to develop asthma episodes due to elevated serum level of IgE.ROC analysis demonstrated that elevated serum level of IgE occupied a significant (p = 0.001) area under curve (AUC), which was 0.828. In conclusion, the present study confirms the significant role of total and specific IgE in patho-physiology of bronchial asthma and its correlation with disease severity and allergen type in adults