Bronchial asthma: clinical course, serum IgE and skin tests

We studied a group of 38 asthmatic patients to correlate the clinical evolution with results of IgE in serum, RAST and skin tests. Results reveal that almost 70% of the studied patients present important positivity in skin tests or RAST which confirms that the majority of asthmatics have an allergic component in their etiology. The determination of IgE in serum showed not to be a definitive exam to confirm allergic etiology. Only 25% of asthmatic patients with severe evolution presented skin tests or RAST strongly positive.