الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Allergic conjunctivitis is a chronic condition that can greatly affect patient’s quality of life and may even cause ocular complications in severe cases. However, with a proper understanding of the condition, appropriate management and patient education, it is possible to manage. It is estimated that about 40% to 60% of the allergic population report ocular symptoms. Skin prick test (SPT) is the most widely used diagnostic test in allergy. The test is simple, quick and is regarded as the gold standard method for allergy testing, however it requires multiple pricks and affected by various medications like antihistaminics. To overcome limitations of the SPT, new in vitro tools have been devised to identify sIgE and allow the identification of a wide spectrum of sensitizing allergens. One of them is immunoblotting technique which is a simple, fast, and inexpensive test to run. It could be done for a single patient. The present study aimed to evaluate the immunoblot test in comparison with skin prick test in diagnosis of allergic conjunctivitis. The current study included 50 cases clinically diagnosed as allergic conjunctivitis, either alone or associated with allergic rhinitis and /or bronchial asthma. This study included 50 patients, their age ranged between 10 and 62 years with preponderance of male patients diagnosed clinically as allergic conjunctivitis alone or associated with allergic rhinitis and/or bronchial asthma examined at the Out Patient Clinics of the Research Institue of Opthalmology. Identification of the causative offending allergens was done using skin prick test for 50 patients. In the present study, we used 16 natural allergenic extracts obtained from crude materials of our environment and 13 were prepared in the allergy lab of Microbiology and Immunology Department at RIO. Blood samples were collected from patients with positive skin test left to clot, then serum samples were collected and stored till used in detection of specific IgE using immunoblot technique to compare it with skin prick test. In our study, we found that polysensitization is a common finding among our patients. Comparing skin prick test with immunoblot test as regard number of positive cases in each of them (using the 11 common allergens included in both tests), we found that dust mite, mould and cockroach were the most frequent aeroallergens causing allergic conjunctivitis, while pollens of olive tree and cow hair have the least frequency rate. On the other hand, regarding immunoblot test, we found that, mould, cow hair, sheep wool and grass mix showed the highest frequency rate, while feather mix and pollen of olive tree have the least frequency rate. The study found that number of allergic patients detected by immunoblot test were 46 (92%) patients out of 50 (100%) having one or more positive response to aeroallergens in the panel, while the remaining 4 (8%) showed no response to any allergens. Regarding evaluation of immunoblot test in comparison with SPT, we found that sensitivity of immunoblot test in detection of pollen of olive tree, cow hair and mould sensitization was good, while the test showed low sensitivity in detection of feather mix, dog hair and cockroach sensitization. Concerning specificity of immunoblot test in detection of aeroallergens, we found that the test is highly specific for all allergens.