Priscila Takejima

United airway disease: current perspectives

Upper and lower airways are considered a unified morphological and functional unit, and the connection existing between them has been observed for many years, both in health and in disease. There is strong epidemiologic, pathophysiologic, and clinical evidence supporting an integrated view of rhinitis and asthma: united airway disease in the present review. The term “united airway disease” is opportune, because rhinitis and asthma are chronic inflammatory diseases of the upper and lower airways, which can be induced by allergic or nonallergic reproducible mechanisms, and present several phenotypes. Management of rhinitis and asthma must be jointly carried out, leading to better control of both diseases, and the lessons of the Allergic Rhinitis and Its Impact on Asthma initiative cannot be forgotten.

Brazilian Guidelines for Hereditary Angioedema Management - 2017 Update Part 1: Definition, Classification and Diagnosis

Hereditary angioedema is an autosomal dominant disease characterized by recurrent angioedema attacks with the involvement of multiple organs. The disease is unknown to many health professionals and is therefore underdiagnosed. Patients who are not adequately diagnosed and treated have an estimated mortality rate ranging from 25% to 40% due to asphyxiation by laryngeal angioedema. Intestinal angioedema is another important and incapacitating presentation that may be the main or only manifestation during an attack. In this article, a group of experts from the “Associação Brasileira de Alergia e Imunologia (ASBAI)” and the “Grupo de Estudos Brasileiro em Angioedema Hereditário (GEBRAEH)” has updated the Brazilian guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of hereditary angioedema.

293 Sensitization of Severe Allergic Asthma Patients.

Background The prevalence of asthma is high, the worldwide average being estimated at 10%, which makes it a public health problem. Many studies show a clear relationship between asthma and specific allergens. With sensitization to aeroallergens identified as a dominant risk factor for asthma. Objective The present study of asthma reports the allergic sensitization of patients with severe persistent asthma followed in the Division of Clinical Immunology and Allergy of University of São Paulo Medical School. Methods A total of 61 patients with severe persistent asthma defined according to the criteria of the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) were enrolled. Total IgE levels (IU/mL) were measured in serum and levels up to 120 IU/mL were considered within normal range. A battery of 7 aeroantigens (Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus, Blomia tropicalis, Aspergillus fumigatus, Penicillium nonatum, Lolium perenne, Felis domesticus, Canis familiaris, Blatela germanica and Periplaneta americana) was used in skin prick tests (SPTs), which were performed in each subject, on the volar side of the forearm. Histamine hydrochloride and normal saline solutions were used as positive and negative controls, respectively. The SPTs were read after 15 minutes and, a wheal at least 3 mm greater than the negative control was considered positive. Results The asthmatic patients had a mean age of 48 years and 75% were female. We found that mean total serum IgE levels were 518.4 IU/mL (between 17 and 4720 UI/mL). SPTs positivity was 91.8% for D pteronyssinus, 67.2% for Blomia tropicalis, 4.9% for P nonatum and A fumigatus, 6.5% L perene and Felis domesticus, 16.3% for Canis familiaris, 21.3% Blatela germanica, 13.1% for Periplaneta americana. Twelve patients were monosensitized and 23 patients were polysensitized to 3 or more allergens. Conclusions Most patients with severe allergic asthma were polysensitized, and dust mites, followed by cockroaches, were the main allergens.