Skin prick test has higher specificity than sIgE for asthma, hay fever, but similar specificity
MONDAY, March 13, 2017 (HealthDay News) — For 10-year-old children, skin prick test (SPT) and specific immunoglobulin E (sIgE) have moderate agreement for allergic diseases, according to a study published online Feb. 24 in Allergy.
Amandine Chauveau, M.D., from the University Hospital of Besançon in France, and colleagues examined agreement between SPT and sIgE and compared their correlation with allergic disease in a cohort of 529 10-year-old children.
The researchers found that the highest agreement was with a cut-off value of 3 and 5 mm for SPT and 3.5 IU/mL for sIgE (κ = 0.44). There was no significant difference for the area under the curve (AUC) obtained with SPT and sIgE. SPT (cut-off value at 3 mm) had a significantly higher specificity than sIgE (cut-off value at 0.35 IU/mL) for asthma and hay fever (P < 0.0001), but specificity did not differ between the tests (P = 0.1088).
“SPT and sIgE display moderate agreement, but have a similar AUC for allergic diseases,” the authors write. “At the cut-off value of 3 mm for SPT and 0.35 IU/mL for sIgE, SPT has a higher specificity for asthma and hay fever than sIgE without difference for sensitivity.”
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