Influence of immunotherapy on histamine release and other immunological parameters of immediate hypersensitivity in pollinosis.

Specific immunotherapy in pollen-allergic patients leads to a significant time-dependent decrease in the seasonal differences in IgE values, that is, the shorter the duration of immunotherapy, the smaller the difference.

Immunotherapy leads to a maximum specific histamine release during the first year, with higher values during the pollen season. Later, the amount of histamine released from basophils decreases gradually in relation to the duration of immunotherapy and the clinical recovery, indicating that this would be a useful parameter in the follow-up of the efficacy of this type of treatment. Inversely, total histamine, which may be considered a parameter indicating the histamine stored in basophil granules, decreases significantly, reaching its lowest values at the end of the first year, with eventual recovery to initial values.

From these results we may conclude that hyposensitizing treatment should not be interrupted before 3 years, since the immunological variations of the immediate hypersensitivity parameters take place during the first 2 years, and then stabilize. On the other hand, the correlation between the degree of recovery after hyposensitizing treatment and the duration of the treatment leads us to recommend immunotherapy for periods longer than 2 years.

CITA DEL ARTÍCULO J Investig Allergol Clin Immunol. 1993 Mar-Apr;3(2):64-71