SERUM IGE AND ABSOLUTE EOSINOPHIL COUNT AS PROGNOSTIC MARKER OF ALLERGIC RHINITIS: A CLINICAL STUDY IN A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Dr. (Mrs) Kalpana Sharma and Dr. Pradeep Singh Rawat*

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Allergic rhinitis is chronic condition with an estimated prevalence of 20%, as per Allergic Rhinitis and its impact on Asthma (ARIA) guidelines. Owing to lack of parameters or prognostic markers to determine the optimum therapy. The condition is treated by conventional drug therapy. The aim is to establish the role of serum IgE and Absolute Eosinophil Count (AEC) as prognostic markers for optimization of therapy. Materials and methods: 50 patients with allergic rhinitis were enrolled and treated according to the step wise therapeutic approach of ARIA guidelines. Pre and Post therapeutic value of serum IgE and AEC was measured. The severity of symptoms was measured using Total 5 Symptom Score(T5SS) at the end of 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 months. Wilcoxon rank test was used to find the significance of change in the T5SS and Chi-square has been used to find the significance of study parameters. Result: Study shows most common age group of allergic rhinitis was between 18-38 years with female predominance (60%). The mean pretherapeutic serum IgE and AEC was 312.48IU/mL and 441.94 cells/mm3 which reduced to 99.55IU/mL and 286.66 cells/mm3 in post therapeutic condition respectively, with p value of <0.05 which was statistically significant. Conclusion: Serum IgE is a better prognostic marker then AEC. For the remission of symptoms, the values of serum IgE and AEC post therapeutically should be in normal range.

Keywords: Allergic rhinitis, Serum IgE, AEC.