Serum Levels of Interleukin-17, D-Dimer, Immunoglobulin-E and Autologous Serum Skin Test as Severity Markers in Chronic Spontaneous Urticaria

Abstract

Iman Muhammed Abdelmeniem Metwally, Nouran Abdelaziz Abou Khadr, Raghda Saad Zaghloul, Doaa Gomaa Ibrahim Salama and Tarek Mahmoud Hussein

Background The evaluation of chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) activity is mainly based on subjective assessment. Accordingly, there is an urgent need for objective measurable indicators to evaluate CSU activity and monitor the response to treatment.

Objective to evaluate Interlukin-17 (IL-17), Immunoglobulin E (IgE), D-dimer, and Autologous Serum Skin Test (ASST) in relation to ur- ticarial activity score (UAS7) and angioedema activity score (AAS) in CSU patients.

Patients and Methods A comparative study was conducted on 80 CSU patients and 80 healthy age and gender-matched controls. The severity of CSU was assessed using UAS7 and AAS. ASST was done on all patients to determine the group with autoimmune urticaria. A venous blood sample was obtained to measure D-dimer, IL-17, and IgE.

Results Our data showed elevated serum levels of IL-17, IgE, and D-dimer as well as positive ASST among CSU patients, however, no correlation was reported between these biomarkers. There were high statistically significant correlations between UAS7 with serum IL-17, D-dimer, IgE, ASST, and AAS (p ≤0.001, for all). However, regarding AAS, there’s a significant positive correlation between AAS/day with D-dimer (r=0.245 and p=0.029), and IgE (r=0.751 and p ≤0.001).

Conclusion IL-17, IgE, and D-dimer as well as ASST are related to CSU activity and can be used as useful indicators for diagnosing CSU and for assessing CSU and angioedema activity.

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